Hey gang!
I just wanted to throw my hat in the ring here.

1) I usually just do a fairly simple braise, don't have a recipe though as its more of a technique. You can change it up depending on what's in your fridge.
First get a pot on the stove and warm it up. You'll want something like a dutch oven here (ideal) but a pot will do as well.

Pour in a little olive oil or real butter.
When the oil is good and hot, put in the rabbit pieces floured lightly with salt and pepper. Don't be afraid to get them pretty browned. They may not seem like it at first, but they will 'unstick' from the pan when it's time to flip them.

After browned all sides, put the pieces in a bowl and reserve.

Now fry in the same oil (add a little more if needed) some onions (I like lots! and put them in a bowl when finished), some sliced mushrooms (Lots as well please! in the same bowl as the onions), and then fry some minced fresh garlic.

When the garlic is just getting done, add a tablespoon or so of tomato paste. Stir that around and let it stick good to the pan. You may think that you're burning it, but it's just caramelizing nice.. Just before it's starting to burn, add a pint of good brown ale, and rub the pan with a wooden spoon to deglaze.

Now give it back the rabbit, a cup or so of rabbit stock (or chicken if you don't have it).
Add herbs at this time (sage and some thyme are good).

Cover the pan and put in the oven at 350, till the rabbit is tender.

Plate rabbit parts over your favorite starch (polenta is a treat for this) with the sauteed mushrooms and onions.
Now you put the sauce back on the stove and make it a sauce (a little thinner than gravy for me) with some roux, flour in water, or corn starch in water (I like the corn starch- makes it really silky)..

2) Alternatively, do the same thing, but make pot pies!

Only difference is that you'll need some pie dough set aside in pans (I use the single serving ones) and freeze the uncooked dough in it's pan to start.

Now do everything the same, but when you take out the finally cooked rabbit meat, chop it up finely with a knife and put it in the fridge.

Make the gravy a little thicker than you would for the braised dish. Cool it off as well.

The next day (everything is chilled, pie doughs are frozen), fill the pie dough with rabbit meat, sauteed veggies, add some frozen peas, and top with the gravy. You want the pie filling a little higher in the center than the rim of the pie. Top with another pie crust and cut three slits into it.

Place in a preheated oven till the crust is golden brown!



I'll be trying some of these you guys posted for sure.

That sounds really good, Tom!

Thanks, just realized we have another one that was really tasty as well.

My girlfriend is a teacher and tutors a child for a Mexican family.. One day she told the father that we raise our own rabbits and chickens to eat and for eggs. He got so excited (he used to do the same in Mexico when he was much younger), ran to get a recipe for her. It was in spanish but had such a great looking photo (I think from a magazine) that she actually spent a great deal of time in translating it.

After she finished translating to the best of her ability, I looked it over for anything that didn't make sense (you probably know how translation can be- some words translate correctly but not in the spirit of the meaning.

Anyway we came up with the following recipe, which we have used and it is delicious! Kind of like a cross between a BBQ sauce flavor/ mixed with a mole (mo-lay is pronunciation if you are unfamiliar with it. I only stress that because I don't know how to type the proper accent on the 'e' and I'm not talking about the burrowing critter, lol.)

Conejo (rabbit) Adobado

1 large rabbit in pieces
5 ancho chiles
1 large tomato
1 large onion
5 cloves garlic
2 T oregano
5 T red wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
oil as needed

1. wash and dry rabbit. mix oregano, vinegar, and salt and pepper for marinade. Let the rabbit stand in marinade for 2 hours.

2. Wash chiles (these are the wrinkly dried black ones you see in the stores) and then soak them in boiling water.

3. Heat up a pan on stove, add a bit of oil, saute the tomato, chopped onion, and chopped garlic till it becomes very saucy-

4. puree the tomato mixture with the softened chiles and the used marinade- all together.

5. Fry the sauce that results in a little oil, thickening it a little till it is the consistancy that you can smear it on the rabbit like a bbq sauce.

6. Arrange the rabbit in casserole dish, smear all over with the salsa, cover and cook at 350 for 1-1.5 hours (or until tender)..

I just discovered the beauty of poaching meats. SOOOOOOO easy and quick. For rabbit, I put an entire rabbit in a pot and add water just until it covers the rabbit. Then I add salt, cumin, coriander, rosemary (or whatever type of seasonings I feel like at the time). Bring to a boil (not a rolling boil, but just when the water starts to get wavy), turn the heat off, remove from hot burner, cover pot and let sit for 30 minutes or so. The rabbit will be totally cooked through.

This makes it so easy to remove the meat from the bones. I pull the meat from the bones (once it has cooled a little) and put it away in the fridge to use in so many dishes. Then I put the bones back in the flavored water and continue to let it simmer to make stock. I taste and season as needed.

This has made my life so easy. In fact, I can poach a rabbit as soon as I get up in the morning and have it ready to put in our lunches. Usually I do a few rabbit on the weekends though.

The rabbit will be lightly seasoned but you can add it to just about anything ... in fact, I think I will do it this weekend and then try to ground it up. We'll see how it goes. I probably won't be grinding up much rabbit though because we are in love with ground goat (slurp, slurp).

Sounds like a great way to cook rabbit and have stock for soup! I'm going to try it.

as we are discussing about recipes so here i am sharing that recipe which i am using and i hope you like it....

Sweet and Sour Rabbit Recipe:
1 or 2 rabbits, cut
1 can pineapple pieces
1 green pepper, chopped
8 tomatoes, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp wine vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp corn flour
Salt and Pepper to taste

Large sauce pan or heat resistant roasting dish
Cooking time - 1 hour 20 minutes

Place all the ingredients except the corn flour into a heat proof dish simmer gently on top of the stove for 1 hour or until the meat is tender.

When rabbit has cooled remove meat and chop into small pieces.

Mix corn flour with a little water add to heat proof dish bring to boil stirring all the time.

Add the pieces of rabbit back in the dish with the sauce, reheat and pour into a serving dish.

Serve with boiled rice or pasta and salad.

Garden Marinade for Rabbit
Ingredients:
Whole rabbit[s]
Lemons, quartered
Garlic, chopped
Fresh oregano, chopped
Fresh sage, chopped
The amounts are really arbitrary. You need enough lemons so that when you squeeze the juice it makes enough liquid to really be able to coat the rabbit[s] in the bowl
I mix up this marinade when I am going to butcher, and I have a LARGE stainless steel bowl that I fill with the lemon juice, the torn up lemon rind and pulp that is left after you squeeze the juice out, the chopped garlic and the herbs. Then I pile the rabbits in the liquid and cover the bowl & refrigerate for a couple of days so that the meat can lose its rigor. Then we take as many as we want to grill. We get the fire hot and break the back of each rabbit so that we can lay it flat with the inside down on the grill. We grill it for about 15-20 minutes until it is nice and crispy on the inside. It doesn’t hurt if the bony side gets a little burnt looking. It actually tastes better to me that way. Then we turn it over to cook for about 10 minutes, or so, on the outside. Then serve.
Any rabbit that we aren’t going to cook right away, we put into its own zip-lock bag and add some of the marinade, including the pieces of lemon, and freeze until we want to use it.

Love all the recipes! I'm new to rabbits so this was a wonderful thread!

Oh, dear, no one has posted Bunny Noodle Soup?!?

You can use any bunny pieces you want and this is a great use for ribs and front quarters, but I also use a whole rabbit.

Start by cooking (poaching) pieces in water seasoned with a little salt.

Remove pieces from the liquid and cool to remove meat. Return the bones to the stock and continue to simmer until meat is ready to return to pot. Strain the bones out and chop or shred the meat and return to the pot. Add wide egg noodles and an additional quart of rabbit or chicken stock if more liquid is needed. I use a soup/stock pot and start with it half full of water and do all simmering/cooking with a lid on, but sometimes I just need more stock.

Cook at a slow boil for about 15 minutes, until the noodles are just starting to soften, then turn heat off and add milk (about 2-4 cups) adjust salt and season with black pepper. Cover and let sit for another 15-30 minutes until the noodles are plumped.

This will serve 4-8 adults depending on how much rabbit meat you start with.

This is adapted from Grandmother's chicken noodle soup

__________ Sat Mar 03, 2012 2:54 pm __________

Onion Soup Bunny

Preheat oven to 350F

1 pkg dry onion soup
2 cups dry rice, cooked
4 rabbit quarters

Cook rice. Pour pkg dry onion soup in container and dredge rabbit quarters to coat. In tin foil square, place 1 serving of rice and place rabbit quarter on top. Fold foil into nice tight package and place in oven safe dish (I use a glass casserole dish) with the package seam up. Bake in oven for 45 minutes or until quarter is cooked through.

For additional yummy, add sliced fresh mushrooms ... mmmmmmmmmm.

You can also do this with chicken breast

More recipes for rabbit can be found in our Rabbit Recipes forum.