Coot stew

[Guest]

I have heard folks talk about actually eating coot stew, but have absolutely no idea how to prepare it.
Anyone out there willing to share their secret soup/stew recipe?

[Guest]

Pete, not much help from me. About the best advice I could give you would be to take the "old boot recipe" off of the previous thread and substitute the coot for the bass fillets.

Paul
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[Ybone]

I posted that old boot recipe and it would definitely work for coot.:] Seriously coot are good eating especially if they have been feeding on wild rice. Try this simple recipe,skin the coots and remove most of the fat, brown them in oil or butter and put in a casserole, pour cream of mushroom soup over them, bake in the oven at 375 til tender.

[Guest]

Pete, give me a day or two and I will put something together for you to try.

Paul
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[DARK30]

HOW ABOUT CROWS? HECK I COULD HAVE WILD GAME ALL THE TIME! AND CARP, GOT TO BE A GOOD WAY TO COOK CARP. WITH A FEW PAIRS OF OLD ARMY BOOTS YOU COULD HAVE A GAME FEED!

OK REALLY I WOULD TRY JUST ABOUT ANYTHING ONCE AND I WAS TRYING TO GET A SNAPPING TURTLE THIS SUMMER BUT COULDN'T.
GOT TUMS?

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cast,cast,cast,cast......

[Sarge]

I have never tried coot, but I have heard that it has more meat than most other waterfowl.

A couple tips that I have heard are to make sure that you get ALL the fat off before cooking, And soak them in a marinade over night consisting of 1/4 cup salt, 1/4cup wine vinegar for every quart of water used.

I did find a few actual recipes on the internet, if you want I can post some, but the say the same thing (no fat, salt/vinegar) otherwise the recipes were quite basic and could be used for any type of meat.

[Guest]

Thanks for the tip. What I am looking for is something I could whip up in our duck camp, making use of the plentiful supply of coots. A fellow who used to hunt with us talked about "coot stew" he had eaten as a youngster, and he proclaimed it the best stew ever made. My feeble attempts to recreate this culinary delicacy have thus far been less than successful. Oh well, I'll keep trying!

[Guest]

Pete, Hope this helps. Sarge is right on about trimming off the fat and using salt and vinegar to take out some of the wild taste, so here you go.

2 lbs coot breasts cut into 1" x 1" cubes. soak overnight in a mixture of 2 tbsp Kosher salt and 2 cups white vinegar.

Next day take 2 cups of flour and put in a large ziplock bake. Insert coot cubes and shake to evenly coat. Brown in 2 tbsp of olive oil in a dutch oven or other large pot.

When brown add:
- 2 cans (16 oz each) whole tomatoes
undrained
- 4 medium carrots, cut into 1" pieces
- 2 medium onions cut into 1/8 's
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 1/3 cup uncooked quick-cooking tapioca
- 1 tsp dried basil leaves
- 1 tbsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp salt

Break up tomatoes, cover and bake or simmer 2 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.

add 1 package (10 oz) frozen whole kernel corn and 8 small new potatoes cut in half. Cover and bake for an hour longer or until vegetables are tender.

Paul
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[Guest]

Looks good, Paul. I'll report back and let you know what the camp consensus is. Hopefully we can try it out this weekend. One of the guys was whining over the weekend - "Oh Chrissake - we don't have to choke down more of that coot &%$# do we?!"
Told him by the looks of things he could stand to miss a meal or two anyway.