Crocodile

Nile crocodile, taken at the Le Bonheur Crocodile Farm near Stellenbosch, South Africa.

So crocodile is the first reptile I have ever eaten.  Unfortunately, I have to reserve judgement as I’m pretty sure the near inedible nature of the meal we had last night is 100% my fault.  It is surprisingly easy to overcook crocodile, at which point it becomes tough.

So far I have only found a limited amount of information around crocodile meat.  Almost every recipe I have found recommends frying the meat.  Perhaps this is where I went wrong, though I was putting in an effort to make a healthy meal. I marinated a crocodile tail filet in lime and ancho chili, pan seared it and served it with rice and mango salsa. Quite possibly one of the worst things I’ve ever made and so I will not share the details. Luckily, I grabbed two tail filets.

So, in general, I realize that successfully cooking up new kinds of meat is going to take a lot of research and reliance on people who have the knowledge.  I ordered a copy of The Complete Fish & Game Cookbook.  While the author does not talk about crocodile specifically, he too recommends breading and frying alligator, which by all accounts is very similar to crocodile (I’ll be sure to come back to this comparison this in the future).

Some general nutrition facts about crocodile tail (100g):

Calories: 112
Fat: 2g
Protein: 24g
Cholesterol: 55mg

Given the comparatively high protein and low fat content, I am not surprised that the meat is quick to get tough. And I suppose frying couldn’t make the meat taste worse. However, the surprisingly high cholesterol level is quite off-putting.

This experiment has not started out so well.