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Cleaned a turtle
SCOUT5
Member Posts: 16,181 ✭✭✭✭
I guess it's been over 20 years since I cleaned a turtle. But I was at a buddy's farm pond today and caught a small snapper (snapping turtle guys) and thought I would clean it to show my son how. It will make a small skillet full.
Comments
Good job
just a little bar of soap and washclothe, you just gotta remember which end bites
The way my Granpa taught me was you nail his hind legs to a tree with his belly facing out, Cut his head off and skin his tail and legs it helps to have some pliers, Cut his feet off at the last joint, cut down both sides of the lower shell and pull the meat off the backbone using a knife.
Then you can debone the legs wash the meat good and let it soak over night in water or milk.
I find they taste good kind of Piggie/chickeny/Froggie with a little snake thrown in
Better than possum but not as good as frog legs
We would always put them in a fresh water tank for a week to clean them out before butchering.
I have heard the same thing.
One other thing my Grandpa taught me was to parboil it before you fry it or make soup out of it.
Nail a live animal to a tree? Kinda makes me want to give you and your grandfather the same treatment. Never been a fan of torture.
No the turtle was dead, I would never nail a live animal to a tree and I am kind of disappointed you think I would :x
Yes.
That is what I've found also when fried, each piece tastes different even from the same leg on a soft shell turtle. Even a little bit of quinine ever once in awhile. Might be better in a soup. (I suspect the different tastes is why Cajuns use lots of spices in turtle soup, get your taste buds burned to a crisp first.
Using a pair of channel locks or some other tool, Let it bite the tool and get a hold on the turtles snout. Put your foot on it, pull the head out and cut it off. Turn it over on it's back, put your foot on it and using the channel locks pull each leg out and cut the claws off using a pair of snips. Let it lay a couple of minutes with the neck end pointing down some so it can bleed out. Then place it belly up on something, a truck tailgate and a piece of cardboard works fine. Cut the skin next to the shell all around, skin the hind legs and tail, then the front legs and neck. Then take the end of your knife and cut the bottom lose from the top shell. Pull up on the edge of the bottom and use your knife to cut it loose from the tissue under it. Find the joint holding the hind legs and tail to the shell and cut it loose, repeat this on the front legs and neck. Trim off the junk you don't want and your done.
I cleanup the edible parts and soak them in salt water. Cook as desired.
You got to have some pliers its like a catfish you need pliers to skin them.
Seen an episode of "Bizarre Foods" on youtube where dude was in Pennsylvania? Went to a pond and caught a pair and took it to the "expert" turtle dismantler. That boy took out much tools to chop shop them turtles. Limb lopper or was it a bolt cutter? I thought using a saw-zall might cut down on all manner of tools I'd have to get to do that task. All I know is lots of work for so little a yield. If those turtles taste like chicken I'd just go get a chicken from the shops. Then call it "mock/faux" turtle soup. Throw in segments of chicken neck in each serving to sell the soup.
No problem we shot them with a 22 in the head when we were out fishing in MS or one of the lakes formed when the MS changed course.
Me and PaPaw fished in his 17" Jon boat with a 6hp Johnson all over the lakes. He had an old black guy with one arm who would come and act as Papaw's trolling motor. Papaw paid him $10, 3 Catfish(All the Carp and Gar) and a pint of Old Forester. That guy could skull that boat wherever you wanted. He walked 5 miles to Papaw's cabin on the lake and would be waiting for us. I remember Papaw giving him a biscuit with a sausage on it for breakfast and him hitting that pint at 0500
This was in the late 60's early 70's. He also had a pack of beagles and he would run then for rabbits for me and Papaw and his wife would clean them. We would take 1/2 of them home and Grandma would cook them for us.
Those were the days. I watched his wife clean a Gar one time and she made Gar Balls...........man that was good eatin.
We giged frogs at night
those were the days.
He decided to wear some shoes. I told him he was lucky that he had on shorts, it might have went for something higher up in the groin area. He indicated the turtle would have to have really good eyesight to see anything big and tasty in his groin area.
6 horse motor seems awful big for a seventeen inch boat.