Rabbit

[liuzhou]

Lapin a la Moutarde/a la diable (rabbit with mustard)

That's definitely going on my list. I remember the first time I ate it - in a restaurant in Putney, London. It was one of those never-to-be-forgotten dishes. It was superb.

Only hope I can do it justice.

[djyee100]

Recently I ate a restaurant meal of deep-fried rabbit over a melange of braised shell beans (black, white, and lima green beans) and fresh cherry tomatoes. The rabbit was boned, dipped in flour or a tempura batter, and deep-fried. It was served piping hot. The beans may have been each cooked separately, to hold their color and shape, then tossed together with some braising liquid, then some halved cherry tomatoes. Sorta like a warm bean salad with the savory braising liquid as a "dressing." Very good!

[Dave Hatfield]

I hate to be a naysayer, but I think domestic rabbit isn't worth bothering with. Stringy, little flavour and relatively expensive.

Give me a nice free range chicken any day.

Any recipe that one can do with rabbit can be done equally well if not better with chicken. I suppose the opposite is also true, but why bother.

Wild rabbit & hare is a different story. Those have some taste to them without having be gussied up with every herb & spice in the pantry.

Sorry guys, but I'll take chicken.

[liuzhou]

Stringy, little flavour and relatively expensive.

I think you need to change your butcher. The rabbit I buy is neither stringy, flavourless or particularly expensive (it's cheaper than the chicken).

I'll grant you that wild rabbit is different - not necessarily better. Ditto, hare.

[liuzhou]

Here is one I made earlier. Well, today.

Leg of rabbit, slow braised (about 8 hours) in red wine with onions, garlic, a basic bouquet garni and a shake of dried chilli flakes; fresh straw mushrooms; rice.

Not a string in sight; full of flavour and cheap.

Edited September 21, 2013 by liuzhou (log)

[sigma]

Rabbit shoulders have little meat, but it is some of the best meat around. The livers and kidneys are also wonderful. The legs are OK and the saddles almost not worth eating. Rabbit rillettes with a lot of rosemary are quite nice.

[Dave Hatfield]

liuzhou Your rabbit look good and I'm sure tastes good. But I have to ask is the flavour much different from the of a 'cuisse' of chicken or better yet duck?

Here the rabbit is relatively expensive compared to free range chicken. I find it relatively tasteless (unless really sauced up). Perhaps the stringiness comes from eating the wrong part of the rabbit.

Also, maybe I'm over reacting to being served some really really bad rabbit just the other day. With honey no less.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I'm very fond of rabbit marinated in white wine overnight, then brushed with aliño (a paste of garlic, red onion, shallot, cilantro, cumin, and parsley) and grilled over hot charcoal.

[HungryC]

Bone out the loin and fry....very delicious.

A typical Cajun treatment is rabbit sauce piquante; rabbit is braised in a spicy, highly seasoned tomato gravy. Sauce piquante is used to tenderize and tame gamy meats like wild rabbit, squirrel, alligator, and turtle. John Folses version herehttp://www.jfolse.com/recipes/game/rabbit03.htm

And Marcelle Bienvenues recent here: http://blog.nola.com/recipes/2007/11/rabbit_sauce_piquante.html

[liuzhou]

I have to ask is the flavour much different from the of a 'cuisse' of chicken or better yet duck?

Yes. the flavour is different. I'm not going to say it is better. Or less good. It's different.

I cook duck more than most meats, but I'm not going to compare that to rabbit any more than I'm going to compare rabbit to salmon.

I'm struggling to work out what your point is. So far it seems to be that, at best, rabbit is the same as chicken and at worse a lot less good. Both of which are, in my opinion and experience, nonsense.

[Dave Hatfield]

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. Let's just leave it there and agree to disagree.

I don't like rabbit, you do. So be it. Peace

[gulfporter]

I scored a rabbit (1kg or 2.2 pounds)  and will grill it for Christmas.  It was going to be just the two of us, but I invited a single neighbor to join us when I found out he wasn't going elsewhere. 

 

My original plan was to grill the cut-up rabbit and make a mango salsa as the side.  (It's going to be in the low 80s here in Central Florida on Christmas Day).  We aren't big on starchy sides or big meals.  But now I'm worried this won't be enough food.  

 

I'll make a starter (not sure what yet) and a dessert.

 

Is this enough rabbit for 3 people??

 

I have made rabbit in the distant past, no idea how much it weighed.  Our recollection is the last whole rabbit I grilled, fed us dinner with enough leftover for a light lunch the next day.  We are not big eaters.  

 

[MelissaH]

I usually figure one rabbit for two people. But with enough sides, you could probably stretch it to feed three. The trouble is that a rabbit only has two of each part, and that will become painfully obvious if you grill it and serve the pieces.

[ChrisTaylor]

I second what Melissa says: you could stretch it to three servings but it'll be very obvious. I don't know if that'd bother you--the presentation, I mean. Sorry to say but you will need some sides. If you're grilling a piece of meat it wouldn't be a stretch, surely, to grill some vegetables as well. And if the weather's warm (some of us are at ease with Christmas Day being 30-40C) and you're cooking outdoors, I reckon it'd be hard to go wrong with a potato salad. Even though it's based on evil starch of evilness. 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Hi gulfporter,

 

One of my aunts raised rabbits, and we all helped butcher them and shared them among the extended family when I lived with my grandma and grandpa. There were always some in the deep freeze, and they most frequently made an appearance at breakfast fried like chicken. We were feeding a dozen or more people, and usually only cooked one large skillet of rabbit, probably 1-1/2 of the small one like yours. There were also eggs from the resident chickens, ducks or geese, fried potatoes, or grits, or my grandpa's flapjacks with Steen's cane syrup, grandma's biscuits and other meats, along with fruit or sliced tomatoes from the garden.

 

To feed three people for a holiday meal, I also think some more sides are called for. Chris Taylor's grilled veggie idea is low carb, and I can testify that it's very delicious as a side to grilled meat. I cook with charcoal now, which goes to waste just searing a steak on it unless you cook more courses on it, so I almost always include grilled veggies too. All or some of these would be good, depending on what's available and what you like: onion, zucchini, eggplant, tomato, peppers and mushrooms. I coat with a little olive oil before grilling and then just season with kosher salt.

 

A nice bakery bread, for your guest gets you out of making a carby side, and you can just send the leftovers home with your guest as a gift if you want it out of temptation's way.

 

Whatever you make, I'm sure your neighbor will be very grateful for your kindness, and I hope you have very happy holidays.

[liuzhou]

I don't really have a lot to add to the advice already given, but would back up that one rabbit isn't enough for three people.

 

Even with sides, it's only going to do two. I often eat a whole one myself, and I'm not a big, or particularly greedy eater.

[gulfporter]

Thanks, all.  I guess I knew one bunny isn't quite enough.  I do have enough goat meat for an army, so will make a goat birria instead, rather than stretch one rabbit with a lot of side dishes.  Since we haven't shared a meal with this neighbor before, I don't have any idea of his appetite so it'll be better to have too much rather than too little.  

[weinoo]

Good move. I agree with liuzhou.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

1 hour ago, gulfporter said:

Thanks, all.  I guess I knew one bunny isn't quite enough.  I do have enough goat meat for an army, so will make a goat birria instead, rather than stretch one rabbit with a lot of side dishes.  Since we haven't shared a meal with this neighbor before, I don't have any idea of his appetite so it'll be better to have too much rather than too little.  

 

There's also no reason you can't now use that bunny as a side dish - if it's not the main meat star of the evening, one will most definitely feed three people as an appetizer.

[gfweb]

Never made it myself, but over the years I've had nothing but overcooked rabbit (except once at The Fountain in Philly).  With the thin bits of meat is seems like it would cook quickly. Whats the best way to cook it?

[MisterKrazee]

The best rabbit I've ever made was marinated with a Jerk seasoning blend and grilled in pieces.  I get the blend from a local shop that specializes in spices. Mix the spices with olive oil, soy sauce,vinegar, orange juice, and lime juice. So much acid. I usually let it sit around 8 hours. 

 

If grilling, use of a meat thermometer is highly recommended to prevent overcooking. I also take the belly skin flap and wrap each little loin. Helps keep the loin meat from cooking too fast. That's assuming you're deboning the midsection, which can be quite tricky.

 

I've always found rabbit to be a rich meat that I can't eat too much of in one sitting. I've fed 3 people on a single rabbit several times, although there were always plenty of sides. 

Edited December 23, 2015 by MisterKrazee
Added more info... (log)

[Panaderia Canadiense]

2 hours ago, gfweb said:

Never made it myself, but over the years I've had nothing but overcooked rabbit (except once at The Fountain in Philly).  With the thin bits of meat is seems like it would cook quickly. Whats the best way to cook it?

 

That opens a whole can of worms…. For my 2 cents, there are two "best" ways to cook a rabbit.  One is to lightly brown the pieces in a pan then slow-roast it in the oven in a white wine and wild mushroom cream sauce.  The other is to spit the whole beast and turn it over hot coals, basting it frequently with chimichurri, until the outside has crisped nicely.

[gfron1]

2 hours ago, gfweb said:

Never made it myself, but over the years I've had nothing but overcooked rabbit (except once at The Fountain in Philly).  With the thin bits of meat is seems like it would cook quickly. Whats the best way to cook it?

As everyone has said, 1 bunny isn't enough, but break it down. On that size rabbit, the two loins could make an interesting app (think seasoned and quick seared, sliced and on a toasted brioche with nut pestolikestuff) and the two hind quarters could go well in a stew-like dish shredded. As to gfweb's question. I have tried every technique, but for sure-fire moist success, I break the rabbit down, season it, then cover it in oil (I use rice bran), and then cook at 225ºF for 6 hours. I do this every day of my life and practically every single night I have customers tell me that they haven't had rabbit that moist and tender ever.

Edited December 23, 2015 by gfron1
add photo (log)

[Shelby]

12 minutes ago, Panaderia Canadiense said:

 

That opens a whole can of worms…. For my 2 cents, there are two "best" ways to cook a rabbit.  One is to lightly brown the pieces in a pan then slow-roast it in the oven in a white wine and wild mushroom cream sauce.  The other is to spit the whole beast and turn it over hot coals, basting it frequently with chimichurri, until the outside has crisped nicely.

I was going to suggest exactly this except we cut it up and dredge in egg/milk mix and then dredge in seasoned flour.  Then we proceed with a mushroom sauce.  That stretches out Mr. Bunny a bit.

[Anna N]

@gfron1

 

 Makes me want to rush out and buy a rabbit and some rice bran oil. I grew up eating rabbit but one of my fondest memories is of my aunt in Lincolnshire and her rabbit pie.   Could it possibly have been as good as I recall?  The few times I have attempted to cook rabbit it has been dry, tough and tasteless. Around here it's not cheap by any means  so I gave up.