Dirty DaVinci on 28/10/2005 at 06:36

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Hehe. Good linguistic skills. Hehe.

PigLick on 17/3/2006 at 07:52

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not bad, but your meat pie sucks ass. Meat and onions?

Gingerbread Man on 17/3/2006 at 08:43

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Okay, obviously you're going to want a younger bat rather than an old one. But fuck if I can tell the difference. I can't even tell what GENDER the bastards are unless it's some horrific gigantic fruit bat with its unholy red penis hanging an inch from my face when I walk into the Indo-Malayan pavilion at the zoo. I don't even know what the name of the kinds of bats we get around here are.

Maybe you can get the butcher to dress your bat, I don't know. Maybe you already know how to dress small game, I don't know.

If you don't, here's the quick and easy:

You don't want the bones. You don't want the head or the feet. You really don't want the guts and bits like that. Basically, and without getting too gruesomely detailed, you want to get the skin off and then clean it like you would a rabbit (a very small rabbit) or a frog (a really weird looking frog)

Cut the membranes out from between the fingerbones, too. They make interesting crunchy garnishes if you fry them up.

So now that you've got a ready-to-cook bat (actually, you'd be better off with four or five -- they're not very big -- but catching four or five is a NIGHTMARE), here's what to do with it:

Get yourself two cups of buttermilk, a few splashes of hot sauce, a teaspoon of salt, and some freshly-ground pepper. Let it all mingle and meld in the fridge for a few minutes while you attend to the bat meat itself.

Bat's pretty gamey, so you are going to want to cut that flavour a bit with something acidic and fresh. Lime is actually a fantastic choice for this - marinade the bat meat in about a cup of fresh lime juice, a splash of rice wine vinegar, and a little bit of the hot sauce you put in the buttermilk mixture. After about fifteen minutes to half an hour you should be ready to go... there's not a whole lot of meat on a bat, so marinade don't take too long.

Blot the meat dry carefully... don't DRY it, but get the majority off. Then dunk the meat into the buttermilk mix and put it all back in the fridge for at least an hour.

While you wait, you might like to ruminate on the fact that you're seriously preparing BAT for dinner.

Anyway, when you're about ready to get the meat out of the buttermilk, start heating an inch or so of oil up to Blazing Hot in a skillet. Also get some panko -- or, failing that, some very coarse breadcrumbs -- ready. Fish the bat meat out of the buttermilk, letting the excess drain off (but not too much) then roll it in the panko.

Carefully drop / release the meat into the oil, and once it's all in there drop the heat down to medium and cover the pan. Should take five minutes or so at the most, but if you're squeamish about it you could give it a couple more. Just don't overdo it or you'll have a really nasty thing on your hands instead of a tasty yum.

Get bat out of oil, drain, sprinkly with salt and maybe a squeeze of lime, and enjoy.

Scots Taffer on 17/3/2006 at 11:53

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jesus what did GBM just eat a bat

PigLick on 17/3/2006 at 12:21

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well meat and onions is a good start, but its just too much meat for a pie filling. The leek and bacon sounds good, but I would cook that with the meat, onion, also add some garlic, beef stock, lots a pepper, some fresh green herbs like parsley or oregano, also potatoes and carrots into the mix as well, cook the lot like a stew, boil it down till its dry, cool, then use that as pie filling.