Okay, technically it’s ground hog.

Happy Groundhog’s Day! This is a little nod to every grammar editor that tells me “ground hog” should be one word. Apparently, minced wild hog meat is not popular enough for Grammarly.

This recipe is one of our favorite ways to put ground hog meat to use. I originally intended it to be meatballs. The spice blend is a bit of a deconstructed bratwurst; I use a lot of pepper and nutmeg and add in parmesan in place of the milk, which is usually used in bratwurst. Ultimately, you get something very similar but a little more free-form.

As I was making them, I made a little patty and pan-fried it to make sure the flavors came out okay before rolling all those meatballs. At this point, my husband stepped in and took over. He wanted to pan fry the meatballs. I protested.

“Do you know how long it takes to fry 2 pounds of meatballs?” I asked.

Consequently, he came up with a different solution and turned them into little patties, slightly larger than a slider but smaller than a hamburger. Of course, he pan-fried them one at a time, so dinner took just as long to make if we had fried meatballs but I just silently sipped my cocktail, picked up a book and let him finish cooking.

It’s the little things, am I right?

Additionally, we ate them with a fork and knife, like steak. You can certainly turn these into a sandwich, however, I prefer them the same way I do a brat: with a dollop of good mustard.