Aswat's Cat Treat Recipes 1

Aswat has this ancient collection of interesting cat treat recipes which he dug up and re-typed using his old typewriter to give me a copy (he is totally un-IT). He had collected them from all over, selecting the best recipes to add to his cache of cat recipes.

Some of these recipes need to be modified a little to match the current education level we have about today's pet cats' diets. I have yet to try them out myself, but for starters I will share one here, providing healthier (as well as cheaper) alternatives to the suggested ingredients.


Stuffed Mackerel a la Pussycat!
Ingredients:

• 2 mackerel fillets (or any other fish fillets more easily available such as salmon, tuna, red snapper or dory)
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil (I normally use either olive oil or canola oil)
• 3-5 strands of long pasta e.g. angel hair, spaghetti, linguine or fettucine (you can use wholewheat pasta as a healthier alternative)
• 100gm ham (you can also use unprocessed meat instead which you can season with herbs like rosemary or basil; alternatively soak the ham in water to reduce the salt and preservative content)
• 2 tablespoons boiled rice (white rice is easier to cook but brown rice is healthier)
• 1 tablespoon oats soaked in water
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste (note that the canned variety contains salt)

Method:

1. Heat the oil and fry the fish fillets on all sides till golden brown colour. Set aside to cool.
2. Cook the pasta strands till al dente.
3. Cut the ham/meat into small pieces, and mix with the cooked rice, oats and tomato paste.
4. Spread one fillet with the ham-rice mixture and set the other fillet on top, to make a 'sandwich'.
5. Carefully tie the stuffed fillets with the pasta strands.
   

A note about tomatoes - some people claim that tomatoes are not entirely cat-friendly; this is true only of unripe tomatoes and tomato plant parts, not the red ripe fruit that we use for cooking. In fact, Sayang likes tomato; I have found her once sneaking up on my pasta plate left on the dinner table before Andy got round to washing it. A lot of premium cat food brands also use tomatoes as one of the ingredients, for its Vitamin A, C and antioxidants.

I don't have most of the ingredients right now, but I think I am might try this one with dory fillet, luncheon meat, and breadcrumbs to substitute the mackerel, ham and oats respectively. Unfortunately tonight I am already tired out from cooking actual human dinners for Andy and myself, so this will probably have to wait. This recipe by the way seems the easiest of all, for half-cooks like myself...

Until the next recipe, try this out if you like cooking for your cats and have these ingredients ready. Enjoy!

Edit:
I just found some energy to try my version of this recipe out.
Scooter is eating it right now... but not much of it. The rest of the cats don't like it. I put it in the bowl set outside our house for the strays like Mommy Cat and Daddy Cat. They ate it all!

The tricky part is the tying of the pasta, which didn't really work out for me in the end.

I also ate some of it, it is actually delicious.