Alligator

Living in south-central Louisiana presents some quite interesting food opportunities.  Of course, there's crawfish.   Less common is alligator.  While it shows up on some restaurant menus (mainly fried as an appetizer), I have never known anyone who ate it home.  Needless to say, I was thrilled when I learned that one of hubby's friend's dad is a bona fide alligator hunter/fisherman.  Cool beans, right?  Well, she went home this weekend and offered to bring us back some goodies, and boy did she deliver!  Not only did she bring us multiple pieces alligator tail, she also got us some soft shell crabs, frog legs, and ground deer meat (chili anyone?).  As I was attempting (and mostly succeeded) to clean/organize our garage, I figured gator would be easiest to do.  

Hubby's friend told us to handle the gator like pork, so I decided to sear it in a cast iron skillet, then let it cook, covered, over low heat for about an hour.  I threw in a couple onions and garlic cloves, thinly sliced, and about a cup of water. 

After an hour, hubby and I were a bit confused as there were still some quite soft pieces, like uncooked fish.  It turns out that alligator tail can be quite fatty, especially at the base, as that is where an alligator stores all of its extra fat.  So the lesson learned is that next time, we will need to trim the meat prior to cooking.. (Now, I realize some of you might be thinking "how could they mistake fat for meat?" but when you're cooking with a new ingredient, it is often difficult to tell or be sure of yourself.  Also, alligator fat is a veeery weird texture.  And once we found the meat proper, we immediately knew our error.  Have no fear, we did not consume copious amounts of fat first! One tiny nibble and we were done!)