Looking for ideas, recipes and any hints or suggestions for cooking rabbit as I just procured one from the butcher. It was sitting next to the duck I was grabbing, and I couldn’t help myself. Thanks in advance.
Rabbit Rillettes, Zuni Café Cookbook
1 lb rabbit parts (preferably forelegs and belly flaps)
1 tsp salt (a little more if using kosher)
1 bay leaf, crumbled
About 6 black peppercorns, crushed
A small piece (about 4 oz) of pig’s foot
1 small carrot, cut into large chunks
1 small stalk celery, cut into 1 inch chunks
1/2 medium yellow onion, cut to wedges
4 garlic cloves
Up to 6 Tbs. olive oil
1/4 c. dry vermouth
Up to 3/4 c. chicken stock
Freshly grated nutmeg
Freshly cracked pepper
Season rabbit with salt, bay leaf and pepper. Cover loosely and refrigerate overnight.
Preheat oven to 300F.
Place pig’s foot in a saucepan of plenty of lightly salted water and bring to a boil. Skim, reduce the heat, and simmer for about 30 minutes. Drain.
Crowd rabbit parts and aromatics, pig’s foot, carrot, celery, onion, and garlic in a shallow, flameproof, 1 qt baking dish that accepts everything in a single crowded layer. Chop pig’s foot into a few pieces if it pokes above the pieces of rabbit. Add vermouth and 1/4 c olive oil and enough stock to not quite half-bathe the rabbit.
Place dish over a low heat and bring to a simmer. Cover tightly and bake until the meat is just falling off the bones, 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Check at 1 hour and turn the rabbit pieces if they are browning.
Let cool only slightly, then remove the rabbit; set the dish aside. As soon as you can handle it, bone the rabbit. You should get about 1/2 lb. of meat. Work quickly to tear and shred the meat with intrepid fingers or, if you are skittish or tradition minded, two forks. Grate a little nutmeg over it. Pound the boned meat lightly in a mortar, in about 1/2 c batches. As long as the meat is still quite warm it will quickly and easily fall into a tender fluffy mass; once the meat cools completely, it will resist separating into the fine filaments that give rillettes their charm. If you like, bone the pig’s foot, chop the meat and skin finely, salt to taste and smash it into the rillettes (it adds extra succulence to the rillettes).
Strain the cooking liquid; skim and add the oil to the rillettes. Taste the remaining liquid. If it looks or tastes thin, simmer it until it has some body and tastes concentrated. A few drops at a time, add just enough of this portion, usually no more than a teaspoon or two total, to the meat mixture until it begins to mass. Taste. Add more salt, pepper, and/or nutmeg if you like. If you want more richness, work in a little more olive oil.
Serve immediately, or refrigerate until ready to use. If you make more than you will consume in one sitting, divide it among small jars or ramekins, packing it lightly, and coat the surface with a film of olive oil. The rillettes will keep a week or so this way. For longer keeping, pour a 1/8-inch-thick layer of clarified butter or melted pork or duck fat over the surface. Scrape or lift off and discard that fat before serving.
Or braised with black and green olives, garlic, orange zest, and white wine.
I’ve always been a fan of boiling.
Sorry . . . too easy. 
I’ve made this recipe 4-5 times and it’s popular in my home.
Marinate with olive oil, lemon, garlic and parsley for 2-10 hrs and BBQ medium hot until medium done and let repose for 5 min. under foil or parchment and a towel.
I raise these things and keep thinking I need to worry about them being tough, but they keep coming out great.
Also, bone out and make satay and serve with peanut sauce. For this, marinate 30-60 min. in soy sauce, lemon juice cumin, coriander, garlic, plus black and red pepper to taste. BBQ hot. Don’t overcook.
OK, I love Rillettes, so this will have to be made soon. Sounds great. Was thinking more of a dinner main course prep for this particular bunny, so the braised rabbit is now a contender. Thank you sir.
Interesting, I do like me some grilled critter as a general rule. Thanks for the suggestions.
Yea, I looked at that earlier today and it does look tasty. Glad to hear a good review.
From the Silver Palate cookbook, rabbit with pine nuts and currants. Board member Mitch Tallan has made this several times and it is fantastic.
I have made this a few times with very good results:
Mustard and rabbit go together wonderfully. There are a lot of recipes around but this one works well
Rabbit with Mustard à la Normande
Origine : Vincent Lioult
For : 5 servings
Time : 40 minutes
Difficulty : easy
Ingredients for Rabbit with Mustard à la Normande :
1 rabbit
1 tsp honey
2 onions
butter
salt
1,5 glass of dry white wine
Calvados
6 to 7 apples
Technical stages for Rabbit with Mustard à la Normande :
Cut your rabbit into pieces. Coat them with mustard (ideally, you may do this the day before).
In a stewpan, melt the butter and brown the pieces of your rabbit. Add the onions cut in 4. Add salt, honey, and white wine.
Reduce uncovered for 5 minutes. Then cover the stewpan and cook for 20 to 25 minutes (the meat must remain tender). When finished, flambé the rabbit with calvados. Reduce the sauce you have now on low heat for 2 to 3 minutes and then add a spoon of crème fraîche when the fire is out (of course from Normandy!).
Garnish:
Peel the apples and cut them into large quarters that you will brown in butter with a pinch of salt. You may flambé your apples too if you wish.
Attention:
Brown well the pieces of the rabbit to obtain a thin hard crust. This dish may be served with dry cider for amateurs.
Once upon a time, I was running this kitchen up in Nyack…well anyway, I had conceived an idea for a dish that utilized the whole animal in two different, simultaneous presentations.
Using “roaster” (3 lbs. + rabbits), I broke the animal down. I took the tenderloins and marinated them in fresh herbs (thyme and parsley), and boned out the rest of the animal. I made a white stock from the bones and fricaseed the remaining body parts. At service I would render pancetta and saute’ mustard greens in the fat, deglaze with stock and add in some fricasee, then serve that over spaetzle. At the same time the tenderloin would be grilled and sliced and fanned out in front of the fricasee/spaetzle. No pics, this was way before the digital age.
We often would grill the cottontails we would shoot while out upland bird hunting. As mentioned above, do not over cook. I suspect that store-bought critter has a little more fat than those we shot in the wild, so a little easier to grill.
Even store bought tend toward pretty lean. At least in my limited experience. I am sure that the size and fat content of the rabbit will differ widely from place to place, and supplier to supplier. But treating it as you would a very lean cut is good rule of thumb.
My latest thing has been fairly freestyle, but along the lines of Hunters Stew.
We have a local vender who raises and slaughters his own meat-he makes great apple smoked thick cut bacon.
I cut the bacon into lardons and render it down in a big LeCreuset.
The rabbit has been marinated a day in advance in olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, and whatever other fresh herbs I might have on hand (not at all important).
Pat dry the rabbit pieces and saute in small batches in the pork fat. I have found the results better without dredging the rabbit in flour. Easier too.
When done, tip the LeCreuset of any remaining fat (normally I am out, and have actually added olive oil before getting all the the rabbit browned) and deglaze with white wine, apple jack, calvados, vermouth, whatever. Not important which-you are simply adding layers of flavor.
Now add more sliced garlic, good homemade chicken broth, fresh or good Italian canned tomotos, good mushrooms (I like chanterelles), and new fingerling potatoes, cut in half (on occasion I take the time to brown the potatoes in bacon fat too-just to add another layer of flavor). Lots of fresh ground pepper and a tad of fresh rosemary and thyme. I start out by putting the lid on the LeCreuset and bringing to very slow simmer. As soon as I see the beginning of a boil, I transfer the LeCreuset to the oven at 300 and let it go for two to two and half hours. The idea is to keep the rabbit tender by not letting the liquid boil but instead toe the line at a near simmer.
The smoke from the bacon tends to pervade and for some can be a bit strong. If you don’t care for that smokehouse smell, go with non-smoked bacon.
Wow Mark,
Rabbit tenderloins… interesting!! How big are they?
Paul
I’m not Mark, obviously, but I expect he meant loins.
Rabbit Cacciatore over polenta tonight. Frankly, it is good lots of ways.
OK, decided my first cooking venture with this will be Coop’s Jambalaya (Decatur St in the Quarter) as my neighbor happened to have the recipe. With all the good ideas here, I think the butcher is gonna have to keep bunny in stock. I will report back on the results Sunday. Thanks all for the ideas.