The "nothing on it" problem is hard to do anything about. Squirrels in my neck of the woods have 4-12oz of meat on them (1-3 daily servings of protein). Other parts of the world might have less, probably not much more. It's tightly wrapped around small bones though, so any presentation attempting to avoid waste should probably include the bones. It's commonly served either whole, split into halves, or thirds (hind-quarters, back, front-quarters). If you want to be fully satisfied on just meat, you'll probably need more than one per person. We usually cooked up 20 or so squirrels for every 6-8 people, along with a little cornbread.
Squirrel being tough and sinewy is easier to do something about. Kind of like flank steak, the point isn't to replace a wagyu ribeye or a filet of cod; it's a different texture. You still have to cook it some way that makes it tender enough to eat, but aside from that you have tons of options.
An easy (simplistic) solution for most wild game is marinating it in buttermilk, breading it, and deep-frying it. The buttermilk acts as a mild presevative, breaks down meat tissues, and tamps down certain "gamey" flavors like iron. It also helps the breading you'll add later stick to the meat and improves the thickness and flavor of that breading. The breading being damp lowers the temperature the meat cooks at, letting it cook fairly evenly and making it easier to pull out while it's still tender. It's hard to go wrong with crispy, browned, salty, fried food, and deep-fried squirrel is no exception.
Any other even, fast-cooking method suffices similarly. It won't be tender, but it'll be tasty and tender enough to eat. Broiling with rosemary and butter is fine, as is basting with a butter sage sauce. You just don't want to get too much protein mass too hot and toughen it excessively unless you're going to cook it for ages and break down the collagen. Treat it in one of the many ways you'd treat a steak, and you'll have a tougher, more flavorful steak.
Most other tough cuts you normally see in the kitchen involve some sort of mechanical softening (meat mallet, thin cross-grain slices, ....). Squirrel is less amenable to that because of how much prep work it is to remove from the bone ahead of time. Those recipes all work (you can make a killer squirrel taco for example), but I don't think it's usually worth the effort.
The other classic way to handle tougher cuts of meat is to cook them long enough to chemically break down those fibers. Something like 180F-200F for 6+ hours. That can be braised (red wine + stock like a coq au vin, white wine + dried beans in a sort of cassoulet variant, tomato + stock + orange + bay relicating kind of a beef stew, ...) as an example, but you could also go with smoked or BBQ or any other slow-cooked meat recipe. Squirrel typically has a stronger flavor than beef or bison, stronger than a new zealand lamb, and weaker (and different) from an argentenian lamb. It's all just red meat, but you might need more or less of some ingredients for everything to balance out nicely.
Squirrel being tough and sinewy is easier to do something about. Kind of like flank steak, the point isn't to replace a wagyu ribeye or a filet of cod; it's a different texture. You still have to cook it some way that makes it tender enough to eat, but aside from that you have tons of options.
An easy (simplistic) solution for most wild game is marinating it in buttermilk, breading it, and deep-frying it. The buttermilk acts as a mild presevative, breaks down meat tissues, and tamps down certain "gamey" flavors like iron. It also helps the breading you'll add later stick to the meat and improves the thickness and flavor of that breading. The breading being damp lowers the temperature the meat cooks at, letting it cook fairly evenly and making it easier to pull out while it's still tender. It's hard to go wrong with crispy, browned, salty, fried food, and deep-fried squirrel is no exception.
Any other even, fast-cooking method suffices similarly. It won't be tender, but it'll be tasty and tender enough to eat. Broiling with rosemary and butter is fine, as is basting with a butter sage sauce. You just don't want to get too much protein mass too hot and toughen it excessively unless you're going to cook it for ages and break down the collagen. Treat it in one of the many ways you'd treat a steak, and you'll have a tougher, more flavorful steak.
Most other tough cuts you normally see in the kitchen involve some sort of mechanical softening (meat mallet, thin cross-grain slices, ....). Squirrel is less amenable to that because of how much prep work it is to remove from the bone ahead of time. Those recipes all work (you can make a killer squirrel taco for example), but I don't think it's usually worth the effort.
The other classic way to handle tougher cuts of meat is to cook them long enough to chemically break down those fibers. Something like 180F-200F for 6+ hours. That can be braised (red wine + stock like a coq au vin, white wine + dried beans in a sort of cassoulet variant, tomato + stock + orange + bay relicating kind of a beef stew, ...) as an example, but you could also go with smoked or BBQ or any other slow-cooked meat recipe. Squirrel typically has a stronger flavor than beef or bison, stronger than a new zealand lamb, and weaker (and different) from an argentenian lamb. It's all just red meat, but you might need more or less of some ingredients for everything to balance out nicely.