It's gator season!

[mbweimar]

Let's hear your recipes. I have some in the freezer waiting for me when I get back to Tally this weekend. Im thinking about making gator chili, or some kind of gumbo.

[Badbagger]

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/alligator-chili/

[bman]

I thought this was a football post...

[Salty Gator]

I thought this was a football post...

driscol.jpeg

That didn't take long

[captkeyser]

[mbweimar]

Thanks BB! I saw your new rig the other day in traffic. Good looking truck! It even matches the boat!

[Badbagger]

Hey thanks Miles, 2004 with as of today 33,500 miles on it. Best deal I ever got on a truck and literally STOLE it... booked at $19k and seller happily accepted $14500. Zero issues!

[Danibeth]

Well we got our first gator tags this past gator season and made gator brats out of about 5lbs of the meat, figuring that if we didn't like it we'd only have to choke down 7lbs or so. Here's a couple of things that we did with the gator meat:


For dinner one night we had us some gator kabobs (minus the sticks) that were marinated in mango juice and terryiaki sauce (I think), with Portobello mushrooms and pineapple. Then some roasted okra to go with it. OOOOOHHHHHHHH YUUUUMMMMMYYYYYYY





But then it was time to get down to stuffing the meat and making sausages. I grow jalapeños (about the only thing I can grow in the sand I call a garden) and this year we had some mammoth jalapeños as well as a little plant that has survived three years now that has smaller jalapeños. We decided we’d make us some brats that are also stuffed with jalapeno and cheddar cheese





Lots of cleaning involved when you’ve got 2 gallons of jalapeños to clean. But they then get cut to smaller pieces for ease of stuffing.



Then there’s lots of mixing involved.





Then comes the stuffing.



We made sure to save the last bit of sausage and cheese to mix together and then stuff into some of my largest jalapeños. If you try this at home, a tip: cut the tips off the bottom. We’ve learned that the hard way to drain the hottest of the hot juices (both spice and temperature) that it’s best to cut the tips off.



Then it is time for lunch…..deeeeeeeeeeeelicious



Homemade mango jalapeño jelly and Pecan Brown Ale from Mile Marker Brewery in St. Augustine made a most delicious addition to the poppers

Danibeth

[Rhettley]

Those brats look good! I've never thought of that. The last gator I had I tried marinating and grilling and could never get it right. It was tough and stringy.

[RCS]

Everything in that last picture looks delicious. You've inspired me to look into planting some jalapenos. I put those things in/on everything.

[Danibeth]

I've found that cooking gator you can very easily over cook it. So it will be very tough. I don't know which cuts of meat you were cooking but the only things that I kept "whole" were the cheeks and the loins from the tail. Everything else got cubed into chunks. We cooked one of the loins on the grill like a pork or lion loin. Like lion, don't overcook it. The best way I know how to describe the "perfect" time to take it off the grill is when it has that rare-med rare feel that steak has, not the med-rare to med well feel. It continues to cook when you take it off so if it's already cooked a little on the well side, it'll continue to do that and it doesn't take much to get it tough. The chunks we've grilled and fried. I prefer them grilled but I sure won't turn down a good fried bit of gator (and fry it to the same touch test). If you look at the meat, most of the meat has a lot of fascia in it (other than the loins and cheeks) ...or the white lines that run through it...if you make the chunks smaller, then they're less "chewy" when they're overcooked because there's not as much fascia. At least that is my experience.

For the gator brats, if you're interested, I ground 20% pork fat to 80% gator. I thought it was plenty juicy and you could still taste the gator. Some people go as high, or higher, than 50% pork. Your taste preference

Jalapenos LOOOOOVE the sun so if you have a good sunny area I'm sure they'll thrive. Seems the hotter it is, the hotter in flavor they are. I've got some jalapenos i grow in pots that are four years old and they're always hotter in summer. I planted the Mammoth Jalapenos last year for stuffers. During the summer they were so hot they'd make you sweat but in the winter (some of the seeds in the compost grew and put out plants and flowers and fruit) they were as big but not nearly so hot.....just a warning

[Danibeth]

Oh yeah....and my dad smoked some gator chunks. Salt and pepper on the meat. He was smoking with oak since that's all we've got right now. Bout 240-250F and for an hour to hour and a half. THAT was roll in it DELICIOUS I'm looking forward to smoking one of the cheeks that way

Danibeth