Edna's Special Recipes No. 1:
"Yorkie à ma façon"
By Edna
At this special time of year, when Spring has sprung, it's so nice to offer your dining companions something rather different, something a little unusual. Had you ever considered Yorkshire Terrier? Yorkies may not be the first choice which comes to mind when you are considering what to serve your dinner guests and Yorkies do have two slight drawbacks: with modern intensive breeding methods, most Yorkshire Terriers these days have very little meat on them and, sadly, what meat they do offer can be both stringy (unless carefully cooked) and unpleasant tasting to boot. However, these negatives are more than offset by the sheer pleasure any fun-loving chef will gain from killing the little shits and the joy you will undoubtedly see on your friends' faces when they realise what they are chewing on.
First, selecting your terrier: it is important only to use a freshly killed dog as Yorkies do not freeze well and the pre-packed ones you will find in most delicatessens these days are likely to have been battery-reared and force-fed in order to put a bit of weight onto their nasty little carcases. I know that pre-packed Yorkies, being professionally topped, tailed and de-gutted, do save a lot of work and undoubtedly they help to keep the kitchen clean and odour-free, but I really feel that nothing quite matches the texture of a freshly killed dog. And of course, you get the fur as a bonus.
A neighbour's pet is my own preferred animal as it's likely to have been better fed than a farmed dog or a stray. And of course you get the benefit of getting rid of the little bastard and its hideous barking. The problem with neighbourhood dogs is, of course, that you're looking at a very limited supply: once you've eaten all the Yorkies in your locality, you have to wait a few months until the replacement generation comes on-stream. And, once people in your area have lost a couple of pedigree dogs, they may well latch onto the fact that there's a predatory Yorkivore in the area and they'll keep the little sods indoors out of your hungry clutches.
Let me share a great tip with you here: why not get friendly with your local police, traffic wardens, postmen and milkmen; and don't forget the humble paper boy. These people range far and wide in the course of their duties and, if you talk to them nicely and give them a good strong bag, they'll happily grab any loose Yorkies they notice. I suggest a £10 tip is about right as an informal thankyou present, probably a bit more for a cop but you'll obviously get away with a fiver to the paper boy, especially if he's an illegal immigrant. Many will supply you with dogs for free, just for the pleasure of getting rid of them. Be sure to tell your supplier not to kill the dog, just to stun it and seal its yappy jaws with strong tape.
So now you've got your Yorkie: what's the best way to kill it? Gourmands differ on this point with many a fierce debate on the relative merits of decapitation, electrocution and hanging. Electrocution can be very funny: the look in those hateful black eyes when the 230 volts kick in is matchless in my book, but the singed flavour is not to everyone's taste and the whole process is potentially quite dangerous. So, personally, I tend to go for hanging nowadays, as this makes the dog wriggle a bit and so provides an element of self-tenderizing, especially important if the pooch is a bit older. A further benefit is that hanging is not so messy as decapitation (let's face it, many of us are not as accurate with a chopper as we should be and nothing spoils the presentation of roast Yorkie more than a badly massacred corpse).
Once your dog is dead (about five minutes after it's stopped kicking), take it down and cut the head off with a cleaver. Set the head aside, there's nothing edible in Yorkie head apart from the eyes which you can finger out and fry in seasoned butter (yum! yum!) but, if you have cats, they'll have hours of fun playing with the bleeding furry lump. Alternatively you could pop the head on a pole and leave it in your garden for the birds to snack on. Either way, you get a nice clean skull for your collection.
Now comes the difficult decision of whether to skin the body, or just remove the fur with a blowtorch. For my own part, I don't particularly like the taste of scorched Yorkie skin so I always flay my dogs, using a very sharp knife, starting at the anus and working my way up to the neck. Try to keep the skin intact as pelt dealers will only buy them if they are in good condition (and we all know how expensive a full-length Yorkshire Terrier coat is). Next gut the animal, making certain to discard all the sexual parts, irrespective of whether you are dealing with a male or a female dog.
I always roast my Yorkies whole; make a few incisions in the flesh at approximately two-inch intervals and carefully insert slivers of fresh garlic and then season well with sea salt and black pepper. Drizzle with a mixture of balsamic vinegar and virgin olive oil and place in the middle of a pre-heated oven, gas Mark 5 (400 F). Allow 20-30 minutes (depending on dog size), basting the creature occasionally with a good quality red wine, then turn down the oven to gas Mark 1 (275 F) and cook for 10 minutes per pound gutted deadweight.
There's no hard and fast rule as to how many people a terrier will serve as it so depends on size and condition; as a guide I would say an average sized dog would be sufficient for 3-4 people. If you're lucky enough to get hold of a litter of Yorkie puppies, then I'd suggest one per person would be quite charming (style tip: puppies look best on the plate with the tail left on).
Serve your Yorkie with roast potatoes and vegetables of your choice. Some gourmands like to keep the head intact to show round on a silver platter so that everyone may feel they know the animal before eating it, but I find this behaviour a little unsavoury myself. Many people like to photograph the terrier before killing it and then place the photo next to the cooked animal for an added frisson; I find this can be disconcerting especially if the photograph shows the little brute snarling in terror shortly before death gives it a merciful release from the horror of its existence.
I find a good Burgundy drinks very well with roast Yorkie, but some of my less sophisticated friends prefer a strongly-oaked, off-dry New Zealand Chardonnay. Bon appetit.
Yorkie kebab can be tasty as well, but needs a lot of care.
(BEFORE) (AFTER)
Next week: how to boil a Great Dane (Hov tva boilen en Grot Dansk), a traditional Scandinavian recipe ( http://www.allpoetry.com/poem/1290079 ).
Adding your comment:
okay...okay...do not call PETA on me you readers...I love animals , but the Yorkie next door........he doodooes in my flowerbed and yaps in applause of the accomplishment 24 hrs a day