[Sca-cooks] RE: Rat recipes

[Siegfried Heydrich]

    Actually, the best way to do them is in a smoker with moist heat. If you
must do them in an oven, put a water pan in with them. Smoking makes the
meat very moist and succulent, and also makes the meat a reddish color that
seriously freaks people out, too.
    You can use really cheap cuts for this if you're grinding your own meat,
which I highly recommend - we generally get the 99 cent a pound briskets at
Wal-Mart. Don't bother trimming them, you want the fat that's on the
briskets in there. Get whatever pork is on sale - right now, you can get
pork shoulders on sale for 49 cents a pound, and even with a 30% shrinkage,
it's still priced right, and the bones make for great stock.
    If you have time when prepping them, put a half a walnut in the nose of
the rat, and cover it with meat. People generally bite the nose off first,
and if there's something in there that goes *crunch* and feels suspiciously
like cartilage, you'll get some seriously amusing reactions . . . Something
else you can do (if you're going for maximum freak factor) is dip stick
pretzels in beaten egg, and then work into the rats. They'll retain enough
texture and crunch to feel like small bones, which also provokes amusing
responses.
    If you're doing this as a fund raiser at a medieval fair or the like,
work out a schtick with the Ratcatcher, and really blow people away . . .

    Sieggy