Fricassee of Groundhog

Well, well, well. So you’ve captured Willie or Phil and have transported him safely back from Wiarton or Punxsutawney packed on ice in your best camping cooler. Yeah, you’re right: strapping him to the hood of the car, like it’s 1978 and you’re Robert De Niro would have been marmot overkill.

But now what do you do with a few pounds of groundhog and how are you going to make dinner out of it? There are some important rules to follow when cooking small game.

You have to be careful with squirrels, for instance. I send my Norwegian Elkhound out into the backyard, and he can usually nab one. I then serve it with the black walunts that have rained down from the tree in which the little rodent once frolicked and gambolled so cheekily–and eat so heartily (you know, what grows together grows together). However, squirrels can give you tularemia, a nasty infection administered by ticks, if you are not careful about the way you handle them.

Squirrel and black walnut: what grows together goes together.

Use gloves when handling your groundhog (and never, ever, use that hoity-toity descriptor for Marmota monax “woodchuck:” that word is reserved for only the very finest Kobe groundhog). If you must use another name for groundhogs, you can easily sneak in references to “whistle-pigs” or “land beavers.” If you want to highlight your more cosmopolitan proclivities, you can use the Germanic term grundsow, but never in the presence of descendants of the Ottoman Empire. Or anyone who even looks like Attila the Hun.

Now, always make sure your groundhog meat has been cooked thoroughly. I can’t stress that enough.

If you accept that a lamb chop is just a little bit better cooked mere milliseconds past medium-rare, then recognize that, in order to keep the spectre of trichinosis at bay, your ‘chuck (I can use the truncated soubriquet because I hail from the state of Kansas, which is also known for it fine cookery of the hispid cotton rat) must be cooked well past rare–unless you are the truculent Anthony Bourdain and then all bets are off as to what you will eat.

(If you are Tony Bourdain, thanks for reading.)

Remember that older groundhogs need a moister cooking method than the young tender bucks. Though you and I don’t refer to the males as bucks, in the very tight social pods of grundsows, they will often look at each other and wink while calling out, “Hey Buck!” and quickly scurry away. They are quite mischievous and truculent themselves, as we know each February 2.

If you have ever  jugged a hare, pounded out and made rillettes of raccoon, casseroled a porcupine, or stewed squirrel with beans and molasses, then you are well on your way to cooking groundhog competently and without raising the ire of your neighbours and the hackles of your dog.

I got this fricassee  recipe from Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, if you must know. A fricassee is a dish of any meat sauteed with butter before being stewed with vegetables and flavoured with wine. The trick to a good groundhog fricassee that would make Joel Robuchon blush is in the hanging.

Put your gloves on, skin the groundhog, and hang it in the cold for 48 hours. Just fuhgedabowdit. Which will be hard to do with the stench.

Groundhog vs. Golden (image courtesy Earl Andrews via Wikimedia Commons).

Next, remove the several small glands from beneath the front legs. Keep these and dry them: they will make a lovely bracelet or amulet; or, they can be crushed into a powder and used as an emetic–or an aphrodisiac. I can’t recall which, but sometimes they amount to the same.

Soak the critter in salt water in the refrigerator overnight (as Jethro Clampitt might phrase it: “a settin’ it in th’ ice-box”). For a good gag, don’t tell the other people in your house it’s there: it’s usually good for a real laugh and maybe a punch in the nose. I once knew a guy who kept a bunch of wolf heads in his chest freezer in the garage and creepily didn’t tell his wife. She found them one day and left him lock, stock and barrel that same afternoon.

The next morning, grab a cup of coffee and a chocolate croissant along with a copy of the newspaper–but after having first checked Waterloo Region Eats. Drain and pat dry your nicely brined and soaked groundhog. Fold and roll your newspaper–any paper will do but don’t do this with The Waterloo Region Record–into a cone: you can then use this to throw up in after having just patted dry a dead, skinned, and brined groundhog.

At this point, you will probably notice that you are alone: look behind you and you will see that there are a few notes from family members who, unlike said groundhog, have hightailed it out of your life explaining that they could no longer live with a “foodie.”

Cut the groundhog meat into pieces–you will notice it is mostly dark meat (I don’t know why and couldn’t care). Dredge with flour seasoned with “The Holy Trinity” of groundhog seasoning: hyssop, Red River cereal, and a pinch of freshly mortar-and-pestled cardamom, along with good ol’ salt ‘n’ pepa. I don’t know what hyssop is, but the cardamom is especially important and should be used when you want your fricassee groundhog “fancied-up,” which is a real culinary term (look it up).

Next, melt a lot of butter in a big black skillet, toss in some pork fat (because it is probably going rancid: I mean who keeps pork fat?) and a handful of shallots. Some folks like to add mushrooms, but they are generally from that really wealthy neighbourhood on the west side that turns its nose up at fresh-roadkill muskrat. Pay them no mind: they probably are Mitt Romney supporters.

Big black skillets--cooking something sensible, like these cipollini onions.

To these ingredients, add the groundhog pieces and get them good and brown before dousing them with some really cheap brandy–or any clay jug you’ve got that’s marked with three “X’s.” Then take a really good pull yourself: you’re going to need it.

Splash in a good generous pour of red wine and some more brandy–for yourself.

Add some herbs of your choice and the juice of a lemon. Put a top on the skillet and let it simmer over low-medium heat for a solid hour. Drink more brandy and sit back and reflect on your life and the series of events that has lead you to have killed a fuzzy, cute groundhog by sic’ing a Norwegian Elkhound on it.

When ready to serve–and while the groundhog might be ready, there is considerable doubt you will be–snap in a knob of butter and build up the sauce with some good vigorous stirring. The fancied-up fricassee groundhog is now finished.

So that’s it. A very simple and traditional way to celebrate Groundhog Day. (Wait. I seem to remember that I posted this before?).

P.S. … Attention PETA: No groundhogs or any other member of the Sciuridae family were injured in the writing of this post. I am only hesitatingly apologetic that the good name and reputation of these rodentia have been sullied (oh, and those cracks about Attila the Hun and Mitt Romney were waaaaaay off base).