How to cook narwhal

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How to cook narwhal

Postby Darcy » Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:10 pm

Or muktuk, or here on Baffin Island; maktaaq...

A local inuit pal gave me a huge frozen hunk of narwhal (and some seal, char and caribou) and suggested I try a small piece first.

You cut off the fat then cut it into small cubes. Local Inuit women use a traditional ulu knife, but my Inuit pal made it very clear that an ulu is a "woman's knife" and I should use my Randall. The locals generally eat it raw but I found it too chewy. In a soup is also traditional and tasty, but fried in butter then in soya is definitely my favourite. You can use the fat to burn in a candle or whatever you want, but we discarded it.

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Leave the white, but discard the fat...
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Fried in butter and soya is my fav...
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In an onion soup
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More traditional way
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I have been eating lots of caribou and char, both incredibly tasty. I've had seal before, very rich. Saving that for the weekend.
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Re: How to cook narwhal

Postby Kurt » Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:45 pm

I have only had the lean parts of whales. (Minke) and I love it. I preferred the Norwegian whale over the Icelandic. The Icelandic whale was good but they made it like Steak au poivre and I would have preferred to me more Icelandic and less "French".

I gotta try the blubber. Never had seal yet either.

Tried Puffin in Iceland and that is quite good. A really, really dark meat.

Char is just a superior fish all around.
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Re: How to cook narwhal

Postby Devlin » Thu Sep 16, 2021 10:18 pm

Much respect for using your Randall, most of them are nothing but safe Queens.
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Re: How to cook narwhal

Postby Darcy » Fri Sep 17, 2021 11:26 am

Devlin wrote:Much respect for using your Randall, most of them are nothing but safe Queens.


Thanks. I definitely got them to use them. I'm a bit of a knife guy...

The DPx 4s and HESTs have been in over thirty different countries, and seen some rough use. I saw a few of the SF guys I was working with carrying Randalls and finally made the plunge. I'll probably bring my 14 up next hitch.

Those Arno Bernards on the right are favs for hunting, used them in Botswana a fair bit and back in Nova Scotia for deer/trout/rabbit etc.., giraffe shinbone handles, and a custom Nova Scotia made blade below that.

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Re: How to cook narwhal

Postby Darcy » Fri Sep 17, 2021 11:52 am

I've got others but those are my main ones, plus a couple of Emersons. That CQC7 was tucked in my belt in Baku on 911. I sent it back and had it replaced at some point.

And a machete for the jungles of course. I have an ESEE that kicks ass... but mostly used for cracking coconuts for a drink

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Re: How to cook narwhal

Postby vagabond » Fri Sep 17, 2021 6:52 pm

In your downtime, you might like the book "The Terror" by Dan Simmons.

It is a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin's lost expedition, on HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, to the Arctic, in 1845–1848, to locate the Northwest Passage. In the novel, while Franklin and his crew are plagued by starvation and illness, and forced to contend with mutiny and cannibalism, they are stalked across the bleak Arctic landscape by a monster.


It's a thick book but moves at a good clip.

Thanks for sharing your knives and adventures!
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Re: How to cook narwhal

Postby Darcy » Fri Sep 17, 2021 8:36 pm

vagabond wrote:In your downtime, you might like the book "The Terror" by Dan Simmons.



Yes! I've read it, amazing tale. I'm reading The Last of the Gentlemen Adventurers: Coming of Age in the Arctic right now, set all around these parts in the 1930. I've read all of Pierre Burton's Arctic books too, and a few others. I tend to read tales from wherever I am at a given moment, and we have a ton of down time (can't say what I'm doing but the weather is keeping us from doing much of it). I'm going through a novel or two a week here. Delving into some poetry too when i get bored, Crow Gulch by Douglas Walbourne Gough right now. Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez up next....

Re-editing novel number two as well. Couldn't find a publisher to take on that unpleasant task...
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Re: How to cook narwhal

Postby el3so » Fri Sep 17, 2021 11:37 pm

Darcy wrote:Or muktuk, or here on Baffin Island; maktaaq...

A local inuit pal gave me a huge frozen hunk of narwhal and suggested I try a small piece first.
I ain't up to speed on slaughtering mammals with a single horn but isn't the recipe akin to pork rinds with some soy sauce and less salt? Fat means flavor then again this isn't pancetta.
Show us some narwal steak man!
Darcy wrote:I have been eating lots of caribou and char, both incredibly tasty. I've had seal before, very rich. Saving that for the weekend.
Bon appetit.
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Re: How to cook narwhal

Postby snaark » Sat Sep 18, 2021 10:36 am

Not wanting to burst your whale meat bubble, but isn't whale meat supposed to be full of heavy metals? I read somewhere that the Faroe Islands (champion whale murderers this week) have an unusually high level of birth defects because they eat so much of the stuff. Apparently whales, as long-living mammals high on the food pyramid, accumulate high concentrations of the stuff, which is still spilling out from the guts of old Russian submarines on the Baltic sea bed.
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Re: How to cook narwhal

Postby Kurt » Sat Sep 18, 2021 1:27 pm

snaark wrote:Not wanting to burst your whale meat bubble, but isn't whale meat supposed to be full of heavy metals? I read somewhere that the Faroe Islands (champion whale murderers this week) have an unusually high level of birth defects because they eat so much of the stuff. Apparently whales, as long-living mammals high on the food pyramid, accumulate high concentrations of the stuff, which is still spilling out from the guts of old Russian submarines on the Baltic sea bed.


Whale that eats krill and plankton = same heavy metal as sardines.

Whale that eats fish = Mo Mercury

What that eats whales that eat fish = Retard Flipper Babies.
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Re: How to cook narwhal

Postby Darcy » Sat Sep 18, 2021 1:43 pm

This isn't a commercial whaling fishery, only Inuit fishing in their traditional ways, and having narwhal is a rare treat. I was lucky they shared some with me to try, but I won't be eating enough of it to worry about iron. I was given a few small pieces to sample, as with the seal. I do have a fair bit of caribou meat to get through though, and lots of char.
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