Cooking Rabbit?

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NickEllis

NickEllis

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I had a fantastic day yesterday out in NE Colorado at some Walk-In land blasting doves. Limited out flushing them from the cedar trees. However, I saw tons of very large cottontail rabbits, and though its not yet open season yet it sure will be eventually!

However, I've never cooked rabbit before; any good ideas on how to make a decent meal out of them? I'd like to know before bagging them, as I hate that feeling of "well, I've got them, now what do I DO with them!" The wife says if I can get a decent recipe, she'll cook them up.
 
When cooking Cottontail I first soak them in milk for at least an hour. Doesn't matter what kind of milk I use 2% because thats what I have on hand. This removes any unwanted game taste. Then its straight on to the BBQ with lots Spicey Honey Barbeque sauce. Keep putting the sauce on since rabbit is so lean it dries out fast.
 
+1 on the BBQ.

I season them up with whatever you prefer and wrap some bacon around it and secure with toothpicks. Cook on BBQ until bacon is done.
 
My favorite way so far has been to take the quarters and backstraps and cut them up into bite sized pieces. Dip them in your favorite breading recipe and then deep fry them. Dip the chunks in either blue cheese or BBQ sauce and you have Bunny McNuggets. Delicious !

(I'll admit, I stole this idea from Birddog)
 
On the BBQ recipes, do you throw the entire rabbit on there legs, ribs, backstrap, and all? Or do you take off the backstraps, quarters, etc., and grill them?

The Bunny Dumplings sound good, and so do the dipping sauces! Yummy... gotta get me some next time out.
 
One thing you want to be very careful about when cooking rabbit, when you clean them, take a good close look at the liver. If the liver has a bunch of yellowish or whitish spots on it, throw the rabbit away. DO NOT EAT IT. Rabbits sometimes carry a disease called Tularemia (not sure of the spelling). This can make you very sick.:barf:

Normally you are OK if there have been a couple of good freezes. The sick one's will have died off. Just something to watch for.
 
Rabbit cookery...

Guido--There is a French recipie for rabbit that starts out, "First, make sure your rabbit is dead...."

Having done that, and cleaned and skinned them, you can do anything to a rabbit that you might do to a chicken.

If cooking with dry heat they must be basted, as they are quite lean and easy to dry out, so's you have nothing left but dehydrated rabbit leather for your efforts. Even the dogs would have trouble chewing it. Don't ask me how I know this.

That caveat aside, they are quite amenable to nearly any treatment you'd want. Although NRA4EVR's suggestion of hasenpfeffer is very traditional, and also very tasty. ("Hasen" = "Hares"; "Pfeffer" = "Pepper," therefore, "Peppered Rabbits," German)

Enjoy the hunting. Hope you also have occasion to enjoy the cooking & eating.
 
Hard to beat Kentucky Fried Cottontail . . . my Grandma used to pressure-cook jackrabbits & snowshoe hares and serve in a gravy sauce . . . they were good too (as was everything else that Sainted Woman made).
 
Coat Rabbit Quarters with Buttermilk,
Let stand at least 1 hour
Season with Seasoning Salt (my preference is Lawry's) and pepper
Dip in Buttermilk again and then dip in a 50/50 mix of Flour and Cracker Crumbs
Place Quarters in a Large Cast Iron Skillet with at least a 1/4 inch of oil in it.
Let Rabbit Brown and turn to brown on other side.
Set rabbit aside and drain all but one or two TBSP of oil from pan.
Add two TBSP of flour and stir until mix bubbles add about 1 1/2 Cups chicken stock and stir till mixture thickens.
Serve sauce on the side or drizzle over rabbit and serve.
 
Yummy..... those sound fantastic. October 1st is gonna be a fun time!

Do most of you hunt them with .22, or shotgun? Pellets are bad enough in pheasant, I'd like to avoid them in the rabbit. Out where I was hunting on the prairie, those suckers were moving FAST. However, I imagine in some timber they would be more hunkered down for clean headshots.

Anyhow, back on topic: how do you make rabbit dumplin's, MCgunner?
 
I use a shottie for rabbits cause they don't usually wait around for a rifle shot here.

BBQ'd rabbit is a fine feast. I think I'll give MDig's recipe a try next time!
 
Here's another good one:

Cut the rabbit in pieces, like chicken, and roll them liberally in seasoned flour (salt, pepper, dried parsely, dried thyme). Brown them very well on all sides in bacon grease in a heavy oven-proof skillet. Remove them to a warm plate and add a diced up onion and a few minutes later 2-3 cloves of minced garlic and a 2 cups of sliced mushrooms. Saute until tender 4-5 minutes. Deglaze this mixture with a cup of dry white wine. Cook this a few minutes to evaporate the alcohol and add a can of chicken stock. Bring this up to a boil and stir a little bit and then add the rabbit back in. Salt and pepper to taste. Cover this and pop it into a 300 deg. oven until the rabbit is tender. Serve with homemade Spaetzel, noodles, rice, potatoes, etc. Goes good with beer. This is also outstanding with pheasant or grouse.
 
Do most of you hunt them with .22, or shotgun?

I always hunted them with a shotgun because I hunted in fairly wooded and brushy areas. Believe me, they will be movin' in the Timber too! Most of the time all I would get was a quick snap shot and they were gone!
 
NRA4Life. Good sounding recipe.
Plus I love Spaetzel
I serve them with Jaegerschnitzle made with Venison Chops.
and a side of brazed red cabbage.
 
Gaiudo

I'm prone to using a 22 . . . my Dad taught me years ago to "look for the eye . . . not many perfectly round black dots in the wild. Don't look for the whole bunny." Lately, I've taken to watching a likely hop-rabbit hang-out from an advantageous point with a highly accurate, scoped 10/22 at the ready. Snowshoe hares are even better choices, as they tend to live in groups. That being said, while I've yet to share the experience, hunting cottontails with the assistance of Beagles & a shotgun is supposed to be a blast . . .
 
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I love this thread as it brings back so many unbelievable memories of my youth. We hunted cottontails around where I grew up in WI, but the most fun was snowshoe hare hunting in Northern WI. What a blast. 20 guys, a pack of beagles and a LOT of 22 ammo. In the first 5 years I owned my Ruger Mark I, I bet I shot 5000 rounds through it, minimum.

Back to the subject though. Rabbit/hare meat makes a very good mixture with pork for almost any type of sausage. Sometimes, we'd shoot so many, we boned them for hamburger and breakfast sausage. Delicious.
 
I've never hunted snowshoe hare (not too much deep snow in Texas and E. Tennessee), but I'm looking forward to hopefully finding some snowshoe areas here in Colorado this fall and winter. I think it should be a blast!!
 
snowshoe areas here in Colorado

If you can catch them after a Chinook wind melt-off, there ain't nothing that stands-out more than a white hare thinking it's camouflaged while sitting motionless on brown ground . . .
 
+1 on the Spaetzel


I use a double barrel .410 for rabbits. It's fast pointing and I have two shots if needed. I swear, sometimes it seems like the dogs just scare them to death and they drop over from a heart attack. I've seen this more than once.
 
A friend of the wife's gave her a spaetzel maker. Now she doesn't have to stand over the pot using two spoons. We have spaetzel more often now.:D
 
roast it like a chicken with some broth, onions, potatos, celery, etc... always turns out good.
 
rabbit drops dead

some years back I was demonstrating a welding gas 'noisemaker' I made for New Years Eve to some folk and fired off a shot(tremondous BOOM echoed thru the valley) a good sized rabbit ran out from low thicket in front of us and fell over dead.
 
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