Gar Balls Recipe - Louisiana Gar Balls | Hank Shaw (2024)

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Louisiana gar balls is a simple, tasty recipe that works with most fish, not just gar. This is the best way to cook a very large gar, like an alligator gar.

The reason is because gar is a firm, lean fish anyway, and large gar develop sinews and connective tissue on par with land animals like deer or beef — stringy.

So the classic Cajun answer is to scrape the meat away from those sinews and make them into patties or gar balls.

You do not need to have gar to make gar balls. They are just another form of fish meatball, after all, and are delicious with any fish you have on hand.

Making Gar Balls

In a perfect world, you would run the gar meat through a meat grinder set with a fine die, like 4.5 mm. But you can make gar balls without a grinder.

The next best method is to roughly chop the fish and pulse it in a food processor until it’s well chopped, but not a paste.

Or, if you actually have meat from a large gar, you would scrape the meat away from the sinew, then chop that fine. That’s how I was taught to make gar balls.

Once you have ground or finely chopped fish, you mix that with the Cajun “trinity” of celery, green onion and green pepper — jalapeno in this case — eggs, breadcrumbs and Cajun seasoning.

Then you can either make a ton of Cajun gravy and cook the gar balls in that, or flour and fry them and then sauce the balls with the gravy; I do the latter.

Cajun Gravy

A great many variations on Cajun gravy exist, but this is a good one. Like most good gravies, this one starts with a roux. The “trinity” reappears, along with Cajun seasoning and Worcestershire sauce.

Brown stock works well here, like beef or venison stock, but a darker fish stock is also a good choice. Use chicken stock in a pinch.

Serving and Storing Gar Balls

Serve gar balls with white rice garnished with green onions or parsley. You could cut them in half and serve in a Louisiana po’boy sandwich, too.

If you want to make the balls ahead of time, make and fry them, then set aside. At this stage, you can keep gar balls in the fridge for up to a week, or freeze them.

To freeze, lay them out in one layer on a plate or tray and freeze, then put them in a heavy freezer bag. They’ll keep a few months that way.

Other Cajun Recipes

Gar balls would be a great appetizer for a Cajun feast. Serve them with something like:

• Cajun jambalaya. If you do this, skip the white rice.
• Seafood gumbo. This is a perfect match with gar balls.
• Dirty rice. Again, if you do this, skip the white rice with the gar.

If you liked this recipe, please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating and a comment below; I’d love to hear how everything went. If you’re on Instagram, share a picture and tag me athuntgathercook.