Celebration of Success: Last Night's Supper

Dad was known to say, "if you're going to kill it, you're going to eat it." I don't have a problem with those who follow a different rule. But that's what I was taught.

To that end, my meal Monday night was a celebration of my success in the field on Sunday morning. He wasn't a big bird. But he was interested in love and the path of his affections took him straight to my box call and directly in front of my 12 guage shotgun sights. His looking for love landed him on my dinner table last night less than thirty-two hours after he was harvested.

Biscuits and gravy were supplemented by butter and herb favored mashed potatoes. The main course was "turkey fingers".

I filleted the breasts out of Mr. Gobbler right after reporting the kill at the checking station at Minor's Market in Church Hill. After carefully washing each breast, one went in the freezer for a latter meal and the other went to my butcher's block. The later was cut into half inch wide and thick strips that were each between three and five inches long.

I added to a bowl of cream a table spoon of my favorite hot sauce - Laughing Bull - manufactured by the Pinola Pepper Company. The turkey strips marinated in that mixture a half an hour.

In a ziplock quart baggie, I added two cups of self-rising flour, two table spoons of Lawry's Seasoning Salt, and a teaspoon of lemon pepper.

In a frying pan I added about an half inch of peanut oil heating it to 350 degrees. As the oil heated, the turkey strips were drained and added to the flour mixture. After shaking well for a couple of minutes to see that each strip was fully coated, the strips were added to the hot oil.

At this point I turn the heat up just a bit to compensate for the cooling effect from adding the cool marinated strips to the hot oil. Having browned the strips to the proper hue, my guests were served this feast with a little Ritter's Farms grape jelly and Red Boiling Springs apple butter on the side.

There was nothing left but a great sense of pride in sharing the bounty from a successful hunt. I long for the next wild game feed!