Sour Cherry Bourbon BBQ Ribs

Ok, I'm getting WAY ahead of myself, but thought that I would share a few of my recipes that I am planning to try rabbit meat in. Maybe some of you will want to try them before I can, since we likely won't have any babies until the Fall!

We have a sour cherry tree in our back yard, and I found this recipe, which uses them! We got about 40 pounds of cherries last year, but we started picking late and quit early because we were so busy last Summer. I think we could easily get 50-60 pounds if we try! I canned quite a bit of them, and those could be used year round for this recipe. Since this recipe calls for 3 cups, next year I will can them in pint & a half jars instead of pints so we have the perfect size jars. If we were tripling the recipe I could just use 3 jars!! It's going to be tough to wait to try this now that I have it all planned out!!

This recipe I think could be done with just the ribs, or probably also the entire rabbit! My hope is that we will be processing ALL of two litters together four to five times a year, so it's possible that I could take all of the ribs and prepare this recipe and then stick them in the freezer. I don't know how many meals for two that we could get from the estimated 16 buns. Would that be 4 meals? If we are on the five litters a year schedule, that would mean we get BBQ ribs 4 times every 10 weeks! Yum. Or less often if we have guests over for dinner. I also have a client in my nail salon who lives alone and has cancer, so I send freezer food home with her to help keep her weight up. I bet she would love a package of these!!

We love freezer cooking because we can prep several meals of each dish at once and then freeze - saves SO much time in the kitchen. I think to freeze these I would get to the part where I brush the sauce on the ribs - I would lay the ribs on a sheet of parchment paper, brush on the sauce and then freeze for about two hours or overnight. If you lay each set of ribs with a little space between the others on the parchment paper, after they're frozen you could cut the parchment paper in between, stack them (after frozen) so there is parchment paper between each layer, then securely wrap with butcher paper. I would also include an extra packet of BBQ sauce - maybe a snack size Zip-lock bag? - in each bundle for use in brushing extra sauce when grilling.


BBQ Ribs (Sour Cherry Bourbon)
1-3 beers

Rub
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon granulated garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground thyme
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon brown sugar
½ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon chili powder

Sour Cherry Bourbon BBQ Sauce
3 tablespoons olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium sweet onion, diced
2 ounces honey Bourbon whiskey
1½ cups ketchup
⅔ cup brown sugar
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons ground mustard
1 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon fresh grated ginger
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 cups tart cherries, pitted

Rub: Combine the smoked paprika, garlic powder, thyme, salt, pepper, brown sugar, cayenne pepper and chili powder in a large bowl. Massage into the ribs, liberally coating. Place the ribs into an air-tight container and marinate in the refrigerator for one hour or up to overnight.

Bake: Place your ribs on a single layer on a rack in a roasting pan. Pour some beer or cider or apple juice or something over the ribs. Roast, loosely covered with foil, at 250° or so for at least 4 hours (6 is better), flipping every hour. If you start running out of liquid, pour some more on.

Sauce: Bring the olive oil to a gentle simmer over medium heat in a sauce pan. Add the garlic and onion, sauteing 3-5 minutes or until tender and fragrant. Add the whiskey, ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar, water, ground mustard, Worcestershire sauce, ginger, cayenne pepper, and salt and pepper to taste. Bring the sauce back to a simmer and add the cherries. Cook over low heat for 20 minutes, stirring regularly, until the sauce thickens. Remove the sauce from the heat, let cool slightly and puree in a food processor until smooth. Reserve.

Finish: Brush ribs with sauce. Finish on the grill or under the broiler for about 5 minutes on each side.

Remove the chicken from the grill and brush again with sauce.
Place under a tin foil tent for 3-5 minutes, allowing the ribs to reabsorb its juices.

This sounds wonderful, but I've never used just ribs, cause rabbits have rather little meat on their ribs and what I can get off usually just ends up in the grinder.

If I were to try it, I would do it with standard rabbit "cuts" like this:

http://honest-food.net/2010/05/19/how-t ... -a-rabbit/

Except that the belly is reserved for jerky.

I was thinking this, too after I watched some videos today on how to dress and butcher a rabbit. Looking at how the carcass looks after it's been dressed and then deboned, I think you could follow the recipe using just the legs with bone in, or even the whole rabbit in pieces. Or I suppose you could do it with most of a rabbit. I was thinking - that would be too often to eat ribs anyway!! Regardless of the cut, I think it will be a terrific and tender way to eat rabbit with this sauce. One thing if I'm not using ribs - the baking time could be cut way down and you'd get great BBQ. Maybe entirely deboned and then the pieces shredded to be eaten more like a pulled pork sandwich...

Sounds delicious. I do honey BBQ, just flatten the rabbit, like a flattened chicken except you don't have to remove the backbone since you already opened them to gut them, they press flat nicely. I put aromatics (celery, carrot, onion) under the ribcage area so that part won't over cook while the rest cooks through. Eat in chunks or, pull for sammies.