This will be a shortish message; I just wanted to share some pictures from Steve Wade and Steve Polley, our most recent guests – we miss you guys! Just for the record, Steve Wade's tarpon was estimated at 45lbs and like the double figure jack crevalle caught by Steve Polley, took a lure. Also have the promised chicken pictures of the new punk girls, Holly, Ivy and Tinsel, Tinsel is the baby with Wozina, her adopted mum.
Last night I cooked for the first time a Belizean delicacy, gibnut, sometimes known as Royal Rat (because it was given to the Queen to eat when she visited here). This particular specimen was shot by our friend George whilst it was raiding his vegetable garden, digging up yams. Various of George's friends and relatives got a piece, and I was forewarned by Joy, George’s granddaughter, that this particular gibnut must have been about 90 years old, it was so tough.
So I decided to try a little science, and knocked down a few wild papayas from our tree, broke them open, and smeared them all over the meat – a piece of belly I think. The idea is that the enzymes in papaya act as a tenderizer. After a couple of hours, I rinsed the papaya goo off and marinated the joint with sesame oil, brown sugar, chopped garlic and fresh orange juice for a couple of hours. Then it was cooked in the oven on a low light for about three hours.
The result? Delicious and tender! It’s a bit like pork or maybe more like wild boar. Anyway, it’s very good, and just a pity that we don’t get it more often. They are wild animals though the odd one is kept in the village, as pets I think. It would be interesting to know why they aren’t farmed, though I have heard that there are some plans to set up smallholdings with gibnut farming. I have a permanent request with the local hunters for “Gibnut please!” but so does everyone else!
We managed to hatch just one egg from the latest clutch, and I was pleased to even have that as Wozina deserted the nest midway through to look after Tinsel and I didn’t notice in time. Spotty was put on the nest to finish the brooding, and she has been rewarded by a beautiful little baby of whom she is very proud. Now it seems that I may have yet another chicken going broody, must be a dry season phenomenon.
We killed a couple of roosters the other day, not my favourite job but it has to be done. Rambo and I do the dirty deed as a joint project, as we are both a bit soft (Chris’s function is chief taster). Turns out that we have an interesting variant, black skin chicken – actually more like grey, with dark flesh. This is highly prized by Chinese people apparently, cooked with ginseng it is supposed to do wonders. We will be serving it up as coq au vin to our next guests, should we warn them?
I have also found out that my punk chickens are frizzles, this is a genetic condition which makes the feathers stick out, and can be bred for. So looks as if we will have the frizzle strain in future chickens. I think they are cute, but as apparently it isn’t a good idea to breed frizzle to frizzle, it means we will be culling the frizzle roosters quite young.
Well, that’s all for today, off to do some work in the garden. More news soon.
Last night I cooked for the first time a Belizean delicacy, gibnut, sometimes known as Royal Rat (because it was given to the Queen to eat when she visited here). This particular specimen was shot by our friend George whilst it was raiding his vegetable garden, digging up yams. Various of George's friends and relatives got a piece, and I was forewarned by Joy, George’s granddaughter, that this particular gibnut must have been about 90 years old, it was so tough.
So I decided to try a little science, and knocked down a few wild papayas from our tree, broke them open, and smeared them all over the meat – a piece of belly I think. The idea is that the enzymes in papaya act as a tenderizer. After a couple of hours, I rinsed the papaya goo off and marinated the joint with sesame oil, brown sugar, chopped garlic and fresh orange juice for a couple of hours. Then it was cooked in the oven on a low light for about three hours.
The result? Delicious and tender! It’s a bit like pork or maybe more like wild boar. Anyway, it’s very good, and just a pity that we don’t get it more often. They are wild animals though the odd one is kept in the village, as pets I think. It would be interesting to know why they aren’t farmed, though I have heard that there are some plans to set up smallholdings with gibnut farming. I have a permanent request with the local hunters for “Gibnut please!” but so does everyone else!
We managed to hatch just one egg from the latest clutch, and I was pleased to even have that as Wozina deserted the nest midway through to look after Tinsel and I didn’t notice in time. Spotty was put on the nest to finish the brooding, and she has been rewarded by a beautiful little baby of whom she is very proud. Now it seems that I may have yet another chicken going broody, must be a dry season phenomenon.
We killed a couple of roosters the other day, not my favourite job but it has to be done. Rambo and I do the dirty deed as a joint project, as we are both a bit soft (Chris’s function is chief taster). Turns out that we have an interesting variant, black skin chicken – actually more like grey, with dark flesh. This is highly prized by Chinese people apparently, cooked with ginseng it is supposed to do wonders. We will be serving it up as coq au vin to our next guests, should we warn them?
I have also found out that my punk chickens are frizzles, this is a genetic condition which makes the feathers stick out, and can be bred for. So looks as if we will have the frizzle strain in future chickens. I think they are cute, but as apparently it isn’t a good idea to breed frizzle to frizzle, it means we will be culling the frizzle roosters quite young.
Well, that’s all for today, off to do some work in the garden. More news soon.
posted by Sue Harris @ 1:19 pm
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