What's Your Favorite Nutria Recipe's

[gwpercle]

La. Wildlife and Fisheries has raised the Nutria Tail Bounty to $6.00 a tail , hunter gets to keep hide and meat . Not much to do lately , plenty of Nutria out in the marsh , so we have a good supply of Nutria in the freezer.
The $6.00 bounty helps pay for ammo and hunting them breaks the monotony ...there is no season and there is no limit ... beats shooting wood chucks .
I make a few favorite recipes , a nice Sauce Piquante, Baked Rice and Nutria , Pot Roasted with Vegetables , Nutria Chile and a Nutria - Oysters Casserole recipe ... but could always use a few other good Nutria recipes .
So what's your favorite Nutria Recipe ... I will be glad to post any of mine if you would like one .
Gary

[Gofaaast]

Season to taste and smoke them (may need to wrap in foil after getting some smoke in them), pull the meat off the bone add barbecue sauce and have pulled Nutria. I assume their meat is similar to beaver and this recipe makes good beaver.

[SciFiJim]

I've only had it once and it was parted out and bbq'd like chicken.

[unclemikeinct]

Wee Ohhh, Getting paid to hunt Varmints you can eat. What a Country. Lovin' it. uncle mike

[gwpercle]

Wee Ohhh, Getting paid to hunt Varmints you can eat. What a Country. Lovin' it. uncle mike

Louisiana does have a few good things going for it .
$6.00 a tail , no closed season , no daily limit , no bag limit , nice fur and good to eat ...sounds pretty good . Plus the darn things are everywhere ...they tunnel into levees , weakening them and that's very bad ...we have levees everywhere .
Gary

[gbrown]

I read this and busted out laughing. I live in SETX near the Gulf Coast and we used to have tons of them, till the gator population came back up in the '70s and '80s. When I was 14, I started my first job as chief cook and bottle washer at a small branch of a popular Tex-Mex restaurant that started up at a converted convenience store down the street from my house. One of the specialties was their homemade tamales that were brought up from the main store, daily. We opened at 4:30PM, and my first job was to steam them, 10 dozen at a time. Then I chopped lettuce and tomatoes for the tacos and heated rice and refried beans. I worked it for about 6 months, then had to quit because of Spring Training (football). A couple of weeks after I left, there was a article in the local paper that they had been closed down because it was found out that they were using nutria meat in the tamales. The tamales were doggone good and the #1 seller there. It wasn't because the meat was bad or dangerous, but because it wasn't USDA approved. In one of the nearby cities, they used to have a Nutria Festival and people would cook all sorts of recipes for it. I never went, but heard that it was delicious. Nutria are herbivores, and I can't see anything wrong with them. Nothing worse than a cotton tail or a big swamp rabbit.

[Winger Ed.]

I've never had the opportunity to eat them, but I used to work with a few guys from Southern Louisiana.
The subject came up once, and they said,
One of their favorite ways to cook 'em was to bone them out,
and cook them the same as you would do boneless fried chicken tenders.

[marek313]

I grew up in Poland and my dad used to raise them in cages. Back then it was different times and I dont know why my dad chose them over other animals but he had them for years. I was very little and i barely remember him skinning those suckers tied to a branch or something. Apparently we all ate them all the time back then but I was too little to remember the taste. From my understanding they dont taste bad at all and yes my mom had very nice winter nutria fur coat she would wear from time to time.

[popper]

That what they put in Nutrina dog chow?

[Winger Ed.]

I grew up in Poland and my dad used to raise them in cages. .

That may be where they came from.
They aren't native to the US.
I think they were brought here to be farmed for their coats, and escaped their pens in a hurricane during the 1950's or so.

The started out in Southern Louisiana, and now they are all across the states along the Gulf of Mexico.
They were supposed to be a cheaper version of raccoon or beaver coats.

About the time that got going, fur coats went out of style.

[Traffer]

I heard they were introduced here in the US specifically for their meat. Somebody thought they would solve a hunger problem in the gulf states. But that could be fake news.
One thing they did for sure was to help the gator population come back. But the Asian carp are probably the greatest reason for the booming gator population recently.
I always wanted to try nutria. I think that BBQ'd would probably be the best.

[Traffer]

That what they put in Nutrina dog chow?

I used to think that you were an intelligent man, Popper.

[gbrown]

They originate in South America. What I read, many years ago, was that one or 2 breeding pair were imported in the late 1800's to Louisiana to grow for their fur. A storm wrecked the cages and they escaped, and from those came our whole population. Back then, most predators in the marshes had been almost eradicated, so the population exploded. They have large incisors like a beaver and eat the inner parts of canes and reeds. You get up close and personal with one (I have) and you learn a healthy respect for them. They are like a large muskrat or small beaver and dig burrows in stream banks and levees with multiple entrances and dens. They can tear up rice field levees and canals that supply the rice fields.

[country gent]

skin cut into chunks place on a trot line and convert into catfish and turtles.

[gwpercle]

skin cut into chunks place on a trot line and convert into catfish and turtles.

Now how just how does a person in Northwest Ohio prepare Catfish and Turtle ...
if he can't prepare Nutria ?

[country gent]

We do them like anyone else. Mom browned and fried turtle Very good. Dad used to joke that zucchini broccoli and some others got fed to the steers to make steaks also.

[gwpercle]

Well Guy's thanks for the additional tips on cooking Nutria . This has given me some additional cooking methods.
For anyone who has never tried the meat , Nutria are marsh dwellers who consume nothing but plants . They are very clean , don't eat garbage , animal flesh or carrion .
The meat is a dark color (not any white meat) high in protein and lower in fat than beef .
They are not rodents but are in the Porcupine family . I much prefer the meat to possum , coon and even alligator that hasn't had the fat properly removed . A good Turtle Soup or Turtle Sauce Picante is hard to beat though .
If you ever have the chance to try nutria and especially if the cook is from Louisiana , try it ...it's a good game animal ... and it doesn't taste " Gamey".
Gary

[gwpercle]

I grew up in Poland and my dad used to raise them in cages. Back then it was different times and I dont know why my dad chose them over other animals but he had them for years. I was very little and i barely remember him skinning those suckers tied to a branch or something. Apparently we all ate them all the time back then but I was too little to remember the taste. From my understanding they dont taste bad at all and yes my mom had very nice winter nutria fur coat she would wear from time to time.

I find this very interesting . They come from South America and are known as Coypu .
I wonder how they got to Poland...pen raised for fur and food ?
They started like that in Louisiana but a 1940's hurricane destroyed some cages and pens someone was using and they escaped into the wild . I hope Poland doesn't have the same problem .
I remember my Dad raising rabbits ... we could feed them but weren't allowed to name them ... if it has a name it's a pet and you can't eat pets !
Gary

[Traffer]

I find this very interesting . They come from South America and are known as Coypu .
I wonder how they got to Poland...pen raised for fur and food ?
They started like that in Louisiana but a 1940's hurricane destroyed some cages and pens someone was using and they escaped into the wild . I hope Poland doesn't have the same problem .
I remember my Dad raising rabbits ... we could feed them but weren't allowed to name them ... if it has a name it's a pet and you can't eat pets !
Gary

A friend and his wife had a "hobby farm" with a few beef steers. They would name them and when they butchered them they would write the name on the package. When they had folks over for dinner they would say were having "Sam" or "Mark" steaks for dinner. Trying to freak out their guests.

[gwpercle]

A friend and his wife had a "hobby farm" with a few beef steers. They would name them and when they butchered them they would write the name on the package. When they had folks over for dinner they would say were having "Sam" or "Mark" steaks for dinner. Trying to freak out their guests.

I was raised on a farm , hunting fishing etc we raised and butchered beef , hogs , chickens and rabbits ... No big deal ...it's how food gets on the table ...
But naming them , then slaughtering & butchering and putting the names on the packages is ... just a bit cold !
Gary