Exotic Island Food

As most of our readers know we do a little developing down here as well. Our newest project is the treehouses of Orchid Hill. It has just started and in fact I got a local family that lives next door to help me out and to chop our 4.4 acres so we could get a topographic survey.

Well during this process we got to know the folks pretty well and Sammy the oldest son and I started talking about what he likes to do for fun. Turns out hunting is one of his favorite activities. I inquired what do you hunt and he explained Iguana and Island Rabbit. The Island Rabbit for the un-initiated is an Agouti (google it). Here is the definition from Yahoo.

name applied to rabbit-sized rodents of the genus Dasyprocta, found in Central and South America and in the West Indies. They have slender limbs with five front and three hind toes, rudimentary tails, and coarse rough hair that varies from reddish to dark brown depending upon the species. Agoutis are forest dwellers; they eat fruits, leaves, roots, nuts, and sugarcane. They are good swimmers and fast runners. Agouti is occasionally used instead of Cuniculus as the generic name of the related paca, or spotted cavy. Agoutis are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Mammalia, order Rodentia, family Dasyproctidae

Well Sammy is a nice guy so when I went to pay him his money at the end of the chopping job he said wait a minute Mr. Mike I got something for you this morning and came back with a plastic bag with you guest it an Island Rabbit he shot that morning.

I watch a lot of exotic travel shows and fancy myself a bit of an exotic eater so this was right up my alley. I thanked Sammy profusely and made my way home to clean and prepare my dinner. I made a few calls and had some more instructions on how to prepare the dish from Sammy so while I cleaned and filleted the animal Cindy went to the store to get limes. I took all the meat from the animal (it could easily feed 4 people) and did a dry rub with garlic salt and black coarse pepper then I put it in a tupperware and added lime juice and let it marinade for a few hours. Then we got it out rolled it in egg and Italian breadcrumbs and pan sauteeed it in oil. Meanwhile Cindy made some stuffing and a corn souffle. Everything came together with perfect timing and let me tell you it was excellent. A little more flavor than pork but similar consistency. We both enjoyed it quite a bit.

I could not help thinking to myself who do I think I am Anthony Bourdain? (great travel show guy on the travel show check it out).