I have found rabbit responds best to any slow cooked method you might employ. Slow roasted at a low temp (225F) in the oven 2-4 hours depending upon bones, no bones, stuffed, rolled, etc.; slow cooked on a smoker grill at 160-180F for 2-3 hours while basting with butter and apple cider vinegar before and during grilling; in an actual slow cooker crock pot with many different combinations found in recipes (Lots of recipes on the internet). Cooking rabbit well takes time and that time, I have found, takes planning. so, I have found I must be more organized and intentional when I want to prepare rabbit and that usually means I am deciding what recipe I’m going to use the day before.
The only way around this is using deboned, ground rabbit, which you can pretty much decide how to prep within an hour of mealtime. There are several ways to achieve deboned, ground rabbit. Thus far, I’ve employed 2 methods:
Since I mostly cook for just myself and hubby (who was also rabbit meat resistant when this all started but now happily eats every time I make it). An entire rabbit, at our ages of 60, is a bit too much for us as one meal. Thus, anytime I prepare a recipe that calls for a whole rabbit cut up into its serving parts (hind quarters, fore quarters, loins), I always set aside the loins and while the leg and arm quarters are cooking, I debone the loin meat, and freeze it. Once I have about 3-4 pounds or so of frozen loin meat (I keep one bag in the freezer where I always add the deboned loin meat until I have accumulated enough to make geting out the grinder worthwhile) I get the bag out, slowly thaw in fridge, then grind into ground meat, separate into 1 pound portions, place each one pound portion into it’s own smaller freezer bag, hand press flat for quick refreeze and thawing, and then just pull from freezer the morning of the day I plan to use it to make: stuffed peppers, meatloaf, stroganoff, burgers, meatballs, etc etc etc any recipe that calls for ground meat, regardless of the type of meat.
Another way of obtaining ground meat is by deboning the entire rabbit before grinding and cooking. You can also dice up this deboned meat for stir fries and casserole recipes. Deboning an entire rabbit is a task that takes time and practice. There are a few good videos out there showing how, which will help you learn.
I’ve also read in the ARBA cookbook that some casserole and stir fry recipes call for par cooking (not fully cooking) the rabbit in boiling water before deboning and then proceeding with the recipe. I haven’t tried the par cooking method yet. Of course, you would not grind the par cooked meat.
I hope this helps. Just so you know, I hooked my hubby onto rabbit meat with a slow cooker recipe I had found that called for a rabbit cut into the serving pieces mentioned before, a can of mushroom soup and other ingredients which also incorporated sour cream 30 minutes before the cooking time was over. Served over rice or noodles it was luscious and chicken like enough that he was convinced rabbit to be good eating. Since then I have tried some recipes that were not as good, but then I just take the leftover cooked meat from the bone and in a couple of days I will make enchiladas or some other recipe that calls for leftover chicken or turkey meat and go from there. Just keep plugging at it. You will figure it out. Don’t give up.
