Rabbit Recipe?

[arrabil]

I think I can make the stew with dumpling recipe above.

I guess no one cooks these things whole (stuffed like a turkey is what I was envisioning) unless they're fried.

Bird, like you, we ate every rabbit we ever got when I was a kid and I've never seen one like the one my neighbor gave me. Granted, I've never seen a rabbit this size before either! We also never ate them fried but those recipes were spur of the moment type things only your grandmother is capable of.

 

[Bird]

I've never seen a rabbit this size before

It would be interesting to know what breed of rabbit you got from your neighbor. Of course, the New Zealand Whites that I raised were bigger that most of the wild rabbits we ate, but things like the Flemish Giants are really big rabbits.

I've never understood why a lot of people would eat cottontail rabbits, but wouldn't think of eating a jack rabbit. We ate every jack rabbit we could get when I was a kid; the young ones were good fried and the bigger, older ones were cooked in the pressure cooker, the meat was removed from the bones, and used in stews, soups, and dumplings, or ground up and put in gravy or used to make rabbit salad (just like chicken salad).

And I really wish that our local grocery stores had rabbits.

 

[gsganzer]

Granted, I've never seen a rabbit this size before either!

Are you sure your neighbor isn't messing with you and gave you a possum or racoon instead, just to see how gullible you are?:licking:

 

[wolc123]

I do them in the crockpot. Sometimes with barbeque sauce, other times with cream of mushroom soup to make a gravy. A couple of cottontails cooked on low for 5-6 hours makes a pretty good dinner. The meat all just falls off the bones when they are done. I cant think of an easier way to make them.

 

[arrabil]

I've never understood why a lot of people would eat cottontail rabbits, but wouldn't think of eating a jack rabbit.

People always want to think they are better than some standard they have in their head. You know, cottontails are cute while jack rabbits aren't. I used to chase them with a net I made from a broken tennis racket. Strung a cloth bag into the opening. During the summer we would scare them out from the bushes, then do the "shortstop dive" with arms and net fully extended in hopes they cut in the same direction I did. A few bruises here and there but generally you could get one every couple of hours.

I'll ask the neighbor what breed it is. And its definitely a rabbit. I'll take a picture before I cook it.

 

[Bird]

I never used a net or trap to catch rabbits. Most of what we ate were shot with a .22 rifle, although a few were shot with a shotgun. But there was a pretty small culvert at the end of the driveway; actually just a piece of pipe and occasionally a cottontail would be chased by the dog and run in there to escape. Bad

 

[Bird]

I never used a net or trap for wild rabbits. Most were shot with a .22 rifle and a few with the 12 gauge or the 410 gauge shotgun. But there was a small culvert (actually just a piece of pipe) at the end of the driveway, and a few times the dog chased a cottontail that ran into that pipe. I had a piece of cable long enough to go all the way through the pipe and a "tow sack" (burlap bag) rolled and folded, tied to the end of the cable, so all I had to do was run the cable through the pipe, the rabbit would side step it, then go to the other end and pull the cable through. The sack served as a "stopper" and I'd just pull the rabbit down to my hands. I always hated to kill those rabbits more than shooting them.

 

[arrabil]

12yos shooting things in a park in Brooklyn generally ends up with cops on your ***. Heck, I had to explain myself a couple times as it was.

I never had trouble killing something I was about to eat. Thats nature's way. At the same time I tend to put bugs on a piece of paper and gently take them outside.

They sell them same Polish rabbits here in the supermarket. I'm pretty sure they were $17.99/lb. I didn't buy one specifically because they looked just like the rabbit my neighbor gave me and I'd never seen anything like it before (the price didn't help either). Funny how that worked out.

Wolc123, I was thinking about the crock pot. I hear its generally hard to screw anything up in a crock pot which is the kind of cooking that I need! Anything else but the BBQ sauce? Potatoes or celery or something?

EDIT: $17 not $7

 

[dave1949]

I
Some day I think I'd like to try Hasenpfeffer, but my brother once told me the only inedible rabbit he ever tasted was Hasenpfeffer. There are dozens of recipes, some of which use the rabbit's blood as a thickener for the gravy, and I can do without that. I sold some rabbits that I had slaughtered and dressed to a German lady, but then later she wanted me to catch the blood for her when I dressed the rabbits and I declined. I told her if she wanted the blood caught, she'd have to do it herself, so she bought live rabbits for that purpose.

Hassenpfeffer translates to 'peppered hare'. I saw some very large hare occassionally in Germany. Out in green grain or rape fields munching away. It was sort of surreal to see their shoulders, heads and ears sticking up out of the field since I had never seen a large hare before.

I should add that rabbit in German is 'kaninchen', so at least traditionally, Hassenpfeffer would have meant cooking a hare.
Dave.

 

[wolc123]

I generally use a barbeque sauce that is made from worchestershire sauce, water, katchup, vinegar, brown sugar, tobasco, and minced garlic. I pull the bones out before serving over rice. You got me hungry thinking about this, and rabbit season closed here last week. Seldom does a rabbit make it to the freezer at my house.