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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 5, 2008 - 10:58pm PT
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I like to think that I am a decent cook. In the late 1970s and early 1980s I worked in 'dinner houses' cooking in between climbing and soccer seasons.
However, one 'dish' has me a bit perlexed.
Rabbit. Sometimes I can cook it to where it is tender, and sometimes I have to throw it out. In the past few months, I have cooked rabbit five times and only two were successful (read tender and tasty).
In the past I have coated it in Dijon mustard and wrapped it in streaky bacon and baked it, but the past two attempts have proved useless. So I decided to make a stew this time, and let it slowly simmer.
The rabbit is still tough.
Any advice.
I know you may think this is a silly thread, but since this is really the only forum I visit and contribute to, I thought that I would give it a try.
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Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
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I wish I could give you my grandmothers recipe. It was always tender and tasty.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Slow-roasted a rabbit in a mole sauce (actually more of a mole marinade) a couple of nights ago and it was perfect.
If you want to post some specifics about your successful and unsuccessful attempts, I might be able to comment. Or, if you think ST is not the place for bunny-baking discussions, send me an email.
David
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
In the mountains... somewhere...
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Marinade as long as possible and grill for as little time as possible. And use some spice but not too much flavor, you don't want to overwhelm the rabbit.
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adam d
climber
CA
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I have a couple in the freezer I was saving til the .22 brought some more in, but I haven't had opportunity lately nor is any coming soon. Any recommendations for what to do with two little frozen bunnies?
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Gnome said Marinade as long as possible and grill for as little time as possible.
On the other hand, our dinner rabbit a couple of nights ago was marinated for a relatively short time, and slow-roasted for over an hour. But that was in an almost airtight ceramic cooker (Green Egg), which doesn't dry things out.
There's more than one way to skin a cat. Or cook a rabbit.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Rabbit and 40 cloves of garlic.
Get one of the many chicken and 40 cloves of garlic recipes off the net. Swap rabbit for chicken and red wine for white. Marinate rabbit overnight in red wine.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there patrick... say, the only time i was able to find rabbit in the store, we ?sauted? it, and may have fried it a bit more, like chicken, dont remember exactly now----and it came out well...
but then, in texas, rabbit could be tough....
it may also depend on the rabbit, itself, you---as to which are tougher... some are a lot more muscle-toned,you know...
crock-pots are nice for all night cooking, as to tender...
dont know if meat-hammer tenderize or not????
also, cut into tiny thin pieces, if possible, and stir fried, may at least maybe help???? but not sure... we've done that years ago with thougher cuts of meat... being thinner, pieces, the toughness is not as noticeable...
best wishes and good eating...
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Indianclimber
Trad climber
Lost Wages
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Portuguese grilled rabbit
2 clove garlic
teaspoon course salt
2 tablespoon parsley
tablespoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon pepper
small onion chopped
2 cups dry white
1/4 cup olive oil
rabbit cut into serving pieces
Mash garlic ,salt,paprika,pepper,parsley,add onion,stir in 2 cups dry white wine
Pour over rabbit let sit overnight in fridge
next day grill rabbit basting with marinade
Mmmm good
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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My mom always just fried it like chicken and it was great.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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I heard today that Rabbits eat their own feces to glean that extra bit of nutrition.
Yum
Peace
Karl
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Ouch!
climber
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Patrick, rabbit is like goat. Gotta get them young if you want to have tender meat. You can fry young ones like chicken but old ones just get tough. Rabbits don't have fat in the meat. I've boiled jackrabbits till the bones started to dissolve and the meat turned into baseballs. Chunk them up and make stew.
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Indianclimber
Trad climber
Lost Wages
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I'm with you Locker,no chunked up baseballs for me
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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the wabbit:
As neebee and others said, it depends on the rabbit. If you have fresh, young bunny as I get in the food biz, It's like chicken without the fat. The most consistent way that I've figured out is braising. I first clean the whole thing down to quarters and make a stock with the scrap. Then just brown and then braise(low heat ,tight seal, some liquid) with the stock, some kinda wine and savory type spices. I then use a variety of sauces and presentations to get it on the table.
If it's a tired old hare, then marinades with fruit and wine and vinegar are good for breaking down all the connective tissue and then slow cook.
Lately, my favorite sauce has been with boar bacon, blueberries and white wine reduction, butter ...
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Pressure cookers can help with tough meat.
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adam d
climber
CA
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LEB, have you caught and eaten fish?
Having seen my girlfriend learn to shoot this year, then place a perfect and well considered headshot on a rabbit, gut it, and feel pretty responsible and empowered by it...I think it's a good experience for most eaters to have.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Growing stuff sure is wonderful. I used to have a pair of french Lops years ago that a friend gave me. they started diggin' one day, and overnite they musta moved a cubic yard of dirt. Then they disappeared for a while and then there were bunnies abundant. Lucky for them, I wasn't into eating wabbits at the time.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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I didn't say what all that bunny poop was great for. Neutralized with some wood ash...
Oh Sheeit...
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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LEB, I knew a guy back in Scotts Valley, Ca. that had an apple orchard with lots of deer. He started letting people hunt there and the deer were a lot less frequent. He even got some deer meat and he made these great sausages with deer and apples and a little pork for the fat.
Pot growers sometimes use large predator urine to keep deer away.
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona, Spain
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Rabbit is a fairly common dish here. A really easy and good way to make it is to cut it up into pieces, brown it well in a lot of olive oil, add salt, a good amount of pepper, a couple of grated tomatos, a good splash of balsamic vinegar, and 3 or 4 beers (in the pan, not in the cook), and maybe a whole head of garlic, depending on your mood. Then let it slowly boil for an hour and a half or so, until the sauce has reduced a fair bit. Serve with brown rice, fried lentils and have some chopped cayenne peppers on the side.
Barbequed or roasted rabbit is pretty bad - the meat is too lean for that.
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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If you have the whole rabbit, you can cook it on rotisserie. I have done that successfully.
Grilling does seem a bit problematic to get even cooking.
Crock pot sounds like a great way to go. I may try that next time. And the mole' sounds good to. I have used that for chicken and pork. It also seems better at left-over time than the first time around. Slow cooking is a nice surprise, when you learn how to do it. You don't have to carve it up before cooking. After cooking the meat comes easily off the bones.
Stir-frying is ok, and relatively easy. You might be able to make that work, but I do a lot less of that now that I have the crock pot.
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kimgraves
Trad climber
2 exits North of the Gunks
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I've never successfully roasted rabbit - it's just too lean. Supposedly you can bard it with lard, but I've never bothered to try that.
You can use any recipe for it that you use with chicken. Like chickens, youngin's are tender while old hens have more flavor, but have to be stewed. I braise mine for the most part. We're lucky - a nearby farmer raises them so we can have them weekly.
Best, Kim
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troutboy
Trad climber
Newark, DE
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As a couple others have mentioned, the first key to good rabbit is to brown it in whatever browing mechanism you prefer. I prefer olive oil because it will not burn as easily as butter. Browning seals in whatever limited moisture the rabbit has. Just cut the rabbit into pieces (i.e. legs, back etc) and brown.
Keep in mind that "tender" is "tender" for rabbit. It is never going to be filet mignon tender.
The second factor is slow cooking using a wet method: Crock pot, pressure cooker, skillet covered with sauce of your choosing, etc. Although you may have some success grilling on occasion, rabbit (and squirrel) do not lend themselves to dry cooking methods.
It really does not matter how old the rabbit is (was) if you do the above steps.
Field dressing is also important. All game animals taste better and are less tough upon eating better if quickly and properly field dressed and cooled as soon as possible.
TS
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quartziteflight
climber
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Good stuff! Domesticated rabbits are basicly all white meat. Cottontails and jackrabbits are mostly dark meat. Two different beasts.
As for hunting your own meat. Its my opinion that by doing so you avoid the cruelty involved with industrial ag. If your gonna eat meat from industrial sources its good to take a look at those places every once and while. Because they're horrific.
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KlimbIn
climber
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Rabbit is very lean -- it's not called "rabbit starvation" for nothing. I thinks stews do better than grilling unless you add a lot of fats (bacon, lard, butter, oils, etc) and keep them in somehow which is hard to do when grilling.
My favorite stew/marinade is Rabbit with Prune:
http://www.750g.com/fiche_de_cuisine.2.123.3151.htm
It's almost rabbit season here, yum. I'm goin wabbit huntin.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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I used to brown them in bacon grease, then put in a casserole dish, cover with sour cream, add capers, and cook for 40 minutes to an hour on 350F or until tender.
Falls off the bone. Tasty.
Cwazy wabbit, twicks are for kids.
-Brian in SLC
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orange crush
Boulder climber
ca
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try to watch how long u let it sit after cooking, more than 5 to 10 will make it sieze up
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Wayno had the key -- try braising.
I can slow-roast rabbits because the Green Egg is sort of magic, but without that I'd be braising, for sure.
D
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Jay Wood
Trad climber
Fairfax, CA
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I cooked up a roadkill jackrabbit once. Skinned it by the side of the road. Cut into pieces and roasted with onions, potatoes, herbs in a covered glass dish. Pretty tasty. Four drumsticks!
After, I had a dream of being hunted by a raptor!
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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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I had peasant rabbit over in France once, my first (and only) time eating it. I should have paid more attention as to how it was prepared, because it was dam tasty and succulent.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 7, 2008 - 02:54am PT
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Jay, is that like the raptor in Jurassic Park?
So, I took the wabbit out of the stew and put it in a casserole dish and finished it in the oven. Tender and tasty.
BTW, we raised chickens, rabbits, goats, some turkeys (dumb), ducks in Saranap (at the time unincorporated between Lafayette and Walnut Creek). We also had 90 cab sauv vines, and grew all kinds of stuff (beans, peas, swiss chard, artichokes, corn, all kinds of squash, broccoli, you name it we'd grow it). Trees included Monterey Pine, Redwood, cherry, apple, pear, peach, apricot, olive, plum, orange, lemon, willow).
And oh yes, some good leaf/bud, which always got ripped off when it reached bud stage (and we usually knew who the perp was, but...). My mom was against the stuff but she grew up on a farm in West Virginia and loved trees and plants and while I was away climbing, travelling, school etc, she'd water the plants because she "hated to see plants die".
The chicken sh*t was good fertilizer but needed to be composted a bit because of the high nitrogen content, but rabbit pellets could be used straight on plants and worked great.
Goat droppings were good too.
The chicken pens were raided by racoons, skunks and domesticated dogs. Racoons would take one chicken, skunks would go for the eggs, but those damn dogs would kill everything and leave it. One day three German shephers were trying to get at the chickens so Sam (cocker/beagle, and not a fighter), Rusty (airedale/Great Dane) and I confronted them. The two GS dogs took on Rusty while the GS bitch sat back, Rusty was a ferocious dog (airedales can be) and beat the two back and chased the three away.
Lucifer, a big goat (over three feet at shoulders) with big horns, tossed a dog about 30 feet after the dog tried attacking him. The dog wasn't hurt but it never came back.
Racoons would ripped off the doors of the rabbit hutches (serious gauge wire) to get at the wabbits. Those little bandits are strong.
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