Fried Rabbit (and other country recipes)

Scroll down to view the vittle recipes for your main course.


Great Vittles Need Greats Cookin' Pots & Stuff

What ya need:
1 cup flour
a good pinch of salt
pepper to taste
hardy scoop of cooking fat (lard)
1 diced onion
somewhere close to ¼ of juice from a lemon

Cut rabbit up in pieces desired. Roll pieces in mixture of flour, salt and pepper. Brown the rabbit in a hardy scoop (bout 3 tablespoons) of cooking fat (bacon drippings can be substituted as a tasty alternative), then add diced onions and lemon juice. Cover and cook until golden brown.

Great Vittles Need Greats Cookin' Pots & Stuff

Success of preparing turtle to eat depends a great deal on proper dressing so put on your Sunday best and...oh, wait, I didn't mean your dressing, I meant the turtle. To dress a snapping turtle, scrub all mud and dirt from him (or her) and then cut off the head and toes. With a spike nail, secure turtle to a large plank of wood breast up by piercing the center of the breast bone.

With a sharp knife cut skin loose from shell around one front leg, then the other, separating the two pieces at the neck.

Then pull the skin off one leg, then the other. This can be done more easily with two people working toegther, one at each end pulling against each other. Start with the right front leg and left hind leg, then grasp both legs and neck in one hand and insert the point of a stout knife at base of neck boke and giving a twist until the legs and neck come loose. Use same procedure on hind legs and tail. Remove breast bone, spike and entrails.

Then with a sharp hatchet or clever, chop along tenderloin on each side, then trim top shell loose. Trim all of the water fat from meat and sicard. Rinse and the meat is ready to use in any of the following recipes.

TURTLE SOUP OR STEW
A delicious soup can be prepared the same as with a choice piece of beef or pork. Now, if you don't know how to make a beef or pork soup, you don't need to be readin' this recipe. Call your mama and ask her for help, then when you know the basics you can come on back and continue your recipe readin'.

A gourmet stew can be made by adding potatos, celery, onions, carrots. Season with salt and pepper as desired, and you can get fancy if you wanna and add a little rosemary and fresh basil. Toss the meat and veggies in a stew pot on low fire until tender (or use a slow cooker on slow for 6-8 hours or until the aroma is so overwhelming you'll know it's ready for eatin')

Before you fry turtle ya oughta parboil or cook in pressure cooker until tender first. Then ya fry it just like chicken...roll in flour or corn meal and seasoned to taste. Fry in deep fat for about 10 minutes or until crispy brown.

Ya gonna need:
2-3 pounds catfish cut in cubes
2 quarts cold water
1 sliced onion
1 chopped celery stalk
salt and pepper
optional herbs: bay leaf, parsley, thyme
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter (or bacon fat)

Toss all ingredients into a stew pan and put on slow fire. Stir occasionally and cook until fish is ready to fall to pieces . Serve hot.

Skin a possum, remove the glands and entrails. Scrape clean and scald in boiling water.

Rub inside and out with salt and pepper and set in a cool place.

Stuff with chestnuts, apple sauce, and bread crumbs (in equal proportions). Can't tell ya how much of each, but enough to fill the possum.

Cover with slices of sweet potato's (yams for you city folks), one cup boiling water, one-half cup lemon juice.

Bake in butter at 350 and baste often until tender.

Get a nice roasting pan and throw a glob of butter in and let it melt.

Season the quail with salt and pepper (or any of them other fancy seasonings you may have) and place in the pan. Slather with the melted butter. Lay strips of bacon on each bird.

Place in hot oven (475 degrees) and bake for about 15-20 minutes. Reduce to moderate heat (350) and bake until golden.

Be sure to baste often with the butter and birdy juices.

Place your coon in a deep pot filled with soda water and a handful of salt and let stand over night. Next mornin' take out of water and wash a couple times to make sure it's really clean, then put in kettle and boil in fresh water until tender.

Put in a bread pan, add pepper and sage to taste. Take oh I'd say maybe 5 boiled sweet taters, cut em in half and place around the coon, then bake in oven at 350 degress for 20-30 minutes.

Coon dressing:
Yep. You can dress up a coon for Sunday dinner by takin' 8-10 slices of dry bread moistened with the baked coon juice. Add 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons sage, ½ teaspoon ground cloves and 1 tablespoon salt. Bake in oven at 350 until the dressing is browned. This will assure a nice tender, tasty coon without being too fat or greasy.

Great Vittles Need Greats Cookin' Pots & Stuff

Wanna Squid of your own?

The following recipes are side dishes to go with your main course vittles above.

Now when ya get right down to it, there's not a whole lot that can be said about cookin' corn on the cob.

Basically, you shuck the corn, find a pot big enough to hold it and fill the pot with water and boil till tender.

Corn is naturally sweet and that's why they call it sweet corn, but you can give your corn on the cob a little help in the sweetness dept by tossing in just a smidge of sugar and about a quarter cup of milk when you boil it.

Once it's done, slather it with butter and season to taste.

Go out and pick some good, ripe apples (or if you're lazy, buy em at the store)

Cut em in half and core, but do not peel. Place in deep baking pan, pour some water around the apples.

Put on each apple:
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of butter.

Bake at 360 degrees and occasionally baste until tender. Serve warm.

Pare cucumbers and cut length-wise in very thick slices; wipe em dry with a towel, then sprinkle with salt and pepper and dredge with flour.

Fry in pan greased with a tablespoon each of lard and butter.

Brown both sides and serve hot.

gather up:
6 green peppers
2 cups chopped up chicken chunks
3 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup buttered bread crumbs
3 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon salt
1½ cup milk (or cream)
Onion juice

Cut top from the peppers; remove carefully all the seeds and tongue. Cut a thin slice from the bottom so the peppers will tatnd.

Melt the butter, add the flour and seasonings, then add milk and onion juice. Mix in the meat and fill the peppers with the mixture.

Cover with crumbs made by stirring 2/3 cup bread crumbs into melted butter. Place the peppers in a baking pan and cover the bottom with boiling water. Bake at about 350 for a half hour.

What you need:
6 large sweet taters
1 cup hot milk
a chunk a butter (bout 3 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons melted butter
½ cup sugar
½ cup black walnuts
pinch of salt

Peel sweet taters, boil and mash. Add hot milk, sugar and a chunk a butter.

Then add black walnuts a pinch of salt.

Place in greased baking dish, pour melted butter over top and bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes.