Alligator Etouffee

[Raine]

Alligator Etouffee

2 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 can tomatoes
1 pound alligator meat, cut into thin strips
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1/2 cup green onions, chopped
1/4 cup parsley, minced
Salt
Cayenne pepper
Black pepper

Sauté onions, garlic and celery in butter until soft. Add tomatoes and simmer for twenty minutes in covered iron pot.

Add alligator meat and let cook over low heat until tender, about 1 hour. If gravy is too thick, add a little hot water. Serve over rice.

[Piccolina]

I have to ask Raine, are you a big alligator meat fan? I've noticed a few recipes that you've posted all featuring this pointy-toothed creature. I've never honestly tried it, though cliche as it sounds rumor is it tastes like chicken

[pdswife]

I had it once. It was pretty good. I'd try it again if we had the critters running around our back yard.

[AllenOK]

I've cooked gator a few times, as the first restaurant I ever worked at, a cajun place. Only the tail meat is edible, so I've heard, and that is rather tough, and is usually mechanically tenderized. I found it to taste somewhat similar to frog legs.

[Andy M.]

My SIL presented me with 5 pounds of the stuff a few years ago when she came to visit from Florida.

I found it interesting and not a particular taste treat. I wouldn't go out of my way for it or order it in a restaurant.

[Jack@CLA]

Young Gator is what you want, 6 foot max. Fried is very good, courtbullion and sauce piquante is also good. Hey, if it's free, eat it! (The Cajun Motto)

Be well, eat well, love hard!
Jack @ {link removed for the last time}

[bubba_sybo]

I had gator meat at Fishbones in detroit and a little fish place downriver. It was deep fried both times and breaded. Fish bones serves it with an awesome sauce. It was pretty good. Tasted like chewy chicken.
We dont have gators up here or I would take a crack at making me some.

O.K. I'll trade venison for gator ...I only need a few pounds. Any takers. Just got a doe last week.

[Constance]

When I lived in Plattenville, La, the neighbors warned me not to let my little 2 year old play outside "without you watchin' her", or the gators might get her. I thought they were having fun with me, because I was a yankee. Then one day I was washing dishes and looking out my kitchen window, when I saw a gator plodding across my yard, not 10 feet away.

I have eaten gator in the form of "Gator Balls". The meat is chopped, mixed with stuffing type stuff, rolled into balls and deep-fried, like conch fritters. They're very good, but I'd rather have conch fritters.
I may have also eaten it in some of the gumbos the ladies fixed there. I know for sure I ate one with racoon in it. You just didn't ask what was in them...they always tasted so good.

[Rom]

I had crocodile once, tasted like a fishy steak :) does it taste much different to that?