Groundhog Quiche

Searching for high-quality groundhog recipes is about as frustrating as trying to find a reputable online discount pharmaceuticals distributor. Google "groundhog soup" and the first recipe that comes up disappointingly contains no groundhog. Similarly "groundhog cookies" is a bait-and-switch misnomer. Rest assured that every reference to "groundhog" in this post concerns that large rodent best known for terrorizing farms and gardens.


Above is a stolen image of your typical groundhog. Below is my garden and the groundhog that once terrorized it:


I won't go into details about how I got the groundhog from my garden into my freezer except to say that my attempts took me back several thousand years to my caveman roots and involved several high-speed dashes out my back door in which I nearly broke all my legs on those stone terraces I built to keep the soil from washing away.

Groundhog Quiche
Basic meat preparation:

1. Field dress the animal, removing the scent glands on the small of the back and near the top of the arms (I have never definitively identified these glands, but several sources say this important, so just remove anything that looks like glands or fatty tissues in these regions).
2. Soak the groundhog for a day in a heavy brine of vinegar (1/3 cup), salt (at least a tablespoon), 0live oil (1/4 cup), and enough water to cover the meat.
3. Drain the brine, and then boil the animal for about 4 hours, or until the lean, heart-healthy meat becomes soft enough to easily pull from the bone. Add spices to taste, such as salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, and curry powder.
   
4. Pull the meat from the bone. Try hard to make sure that you get all the bone out. Unlike chicken bones, groundhog bones are hard as rock and can be painful to bite down on.
   

As you might guess from the photo above, the final product is a moist, tender, dark-chicken-like meat with just a hint of rodent. The options for what to do with this top-dollar dead animal matter are endless. Groundhog pizzas, burritos, and soups are all options that have never been tried yet to my knowledge. More on these innovations later.

For groundhog quiche, you will need (approximately)

• as much of that precious groundhog meat as you can possibly obtain
• 2 large onions, chopped
  
• about 20 ounces of frozen spinach
• a 30 oz of diced tomatoes
  
• a pound of your favorite cheese
• 14 eggs
• half a cup of heavy whipping cream
  
• a dash of corn starch (a tablespoon?)
• salt
• pepper

Mix it all up in the big red bowl, but save some cheese to sprinkle on top. Then, if you like, prepare a pie crust, using your favorite crust recipe. For my crust, I just poured a heap of flour in the pie pan, added a bit of water and a swig of canola oil and a dash of salt, mixed it, and pressed it out with my paws:


Pour the slop into your baking pans and bake for about 1 hour plus some at 350-375 degrees:


You know it's done when you poke a knife in it and the knife come out with nothing more than cheese oil on it (no wet egg).



Serve hot to international students, who tend to be less aware of the social stigma surrounding groundhog and instead view eating it as some kind of cultural experience. But be sure to save a lot for yourself, because it's pretty tasty!