It’s fun to tie together a couple of hobbies. This post adds a bit of role playing games to cooking. Today, we are making Rat on a Stick.

There is a module for the Tunnels and Trolls game called Rat on a Stick. It was put out by Judges Guild. You could explore the dungeon and even become the owner of a fast food franchise. For long time role players, it became something of a catch phrase. So, of course, people started making them for their game nights as an extra snack.

Walt’s work had a Halloween food pitch-in, so we decided to make some ourselves for him to take. This recipe uses fairly simple ingredients, but does take a bit of time to assemble. I made both a meat version and a vegan version for Walt to take.

Rat on a Stick

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • Salt, pepper to taste
  • Onion powder
  • Other seasoning to taste
  • String cheese
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Barbecue sauce
  • Spaghetti noodles
  • Red food coloring

For seasonings, I added about a half teaspoon of the salt, pepper and onion powder and 1/4 teaspoon of chili powder per pound of meat. I would definitely use more seasoning next time as they were a bit bland. The barbecue sauce helped. I made a double batch and got 18 smallish “rats.”

Mix together the ground beef and breadcrumbs. Beat the egg and the seasonings together. Stir it all into the ground beef and breadcrumbs until it’s all blended together. To make a consistent size, I used a scoop to divide the meat onto a piece of waxed paper. I’ve talked about using scoops in a couple of posts, including this one.

Flatten the ground beef mixture. Cut the string cheese into thirds. Put one piece of cheese and a cherry tomato on a skewer. Wrap the meat around the cheese and tomato and shape into the rat on a stick. You want to seal the meat as well as you can around the cheese and tomato.

Brush the rat with barbecue sauce and bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until done. Some of mine leaked a bit of cheese or split open.

Add red food coloring to water to cook your rat tails. I used a clothes pin to keep the end of the spaghetti out of the water. You want one end to be stiff so you can push it into the rat. I first tried adding the tails before baking, but they just broke off when I went to move them off the pan after baking. I also ended up breaking a few tails when I was assembling them, so cook some extra noodles.

Vegan Version

For the vegan version, I omitted the egg and used a vegan meat substitute and cheese. I couldn’t find a block version of the cheese, so I used a shredded version. It made them a little harder to wrap, but they held together well. We had them in a separate pan to take them in, but also colored the ends of the skewers with a bit of green to let people know which ones were vegan.

Both versions of rat on a stick were delicious and were a big hit. Since it is basically a fancy mini meatloaf, you could use a wide variety of bases, such as turkey. I would like to try it with falafel at some point.