how to cook rabbit

[trapper]

I have been catching a rabbit or two a day in box traps.  I check the traps on the way to the woods with atv and sled to cut firewood. I have been pruning fruit trees and take the clippings to my woods to concentrate the rabbit population.   I just save the back straps and legs.  That way I don't have to gut them and the meat is much cleaner that way.  Our cats are happy with the rest of the rabbit.
Any easy way to remove the hair that gets on the meat when cleaning?
Good ways to cook the meat? 
I changed the last word in the last setcence from it to meat to keep some of you guys from tellin g me how to cook the hair. :D

[DanG]

Best way I know to cook wild rabbit is to boil the heck out of it, than add some rice, onions and celery along with whatever other seasonings you like.  You should be able to just rinse that loose hair from it with water.

[ely]

we always just cut the rabbit up in quarters more or less and roll it in flour and salt/pepper and fry it like chicken in a skillet. momma would a took all out bullets from us if we brought in a half a rabbit though.  i dont remember getting hair all over the rabbits but the squirrells were bad about it. we would just singe the hair off the meat after skinning it though ,with an open flame.

[ErikC]

 How are you skinning the rabbits? I do them and squirrels both by cutting a hole in the middle of the back big enough to get a couple fingers in, then pull it off both ways like socks clear to the feet. Never get more than a few hairs on them. Then clean out the guts and wash 'em up, and cut in quarters. Takes me 2 minutes and you get all the meat.  ;)

[Texas Ranger]

We used to scrub the meat down with salt to get the hair off, don't know if it was all that effective, but it sure woke up weather raw hands.

[Tom]

I like rabbit best when it's fried like chicken.  We would put flour, salt and pepper in a paper sack and shake the "parts"  and "parts of parts", then fry in a skillet with deep grease.

Skinning them is kinda like taking off a T-shirt.  Running water takes off most everything you don't want.

[Jeff]

We always soaked the cut pieces in salt water over night in the fridge, then par boiled them in salted water, then fried them like fried chicken. Did this to the tame rabbits too that we used to get when Tammy's Dad raised them.

It was rabbits that weened my son Jeremy off the bottle when he was little. His grampa took him out to see some baby rabbits in  one of the cages that had lost their momma. He told Jeremy that they didn't have a mamma any more and that they needed his bottle for milk. They fed a couple from his bottle, then his grampa said, can they keep it? Jeremy laid the bottle in the cage with the babies and never asked for it again.

[SwampDonkey]

Used to box trap hares here and you either got a squirrel or a hare. Both like apples. ;D  I've had stew from hare, not the regular rabbits. I've seen some fellas go with a car load of hare in the fall of the year hunting. I saw a cotton tail at Jeff's and thought at first it was a hare. But I realized it was too short after you (Jeff) told me what they were. The younger hares we see in the summer remind you of cottontails because they haven't grown out their length and long hind legs yet. We tried to raise hare, but they were too stressed and wouldn't eat. We had them in with the tame rabbits and I think some may have gotten sick (the wild hares got sick) because the tame ones would get sick once in a while. We didn't have a very good setup. Hares belong in the wild or on your plate. ;)

[beenthere]

If little hair, then a gas torch passed over the meat will singe any hard to get/see hair.
That is done after rubbing a bit with a damp paper towel.

[trapper]

Wife fried some of the backstraps tonight, no parboiling necessary.  probably a good idea on the legs.
ErikC that is the way I skin them also.

[WDH]

Fried, Fried, Fried!  Serve with hot buscuits and blackberry jelly  ;D.

[LeeB]

I can't tell you how to ccok it like this, but the best rabbit I ever ate was in Malta. It was fixed in a kind of stew made with fresh caght wild rabbit at a little mom and pop place near the edge of a cliff above the beach. This particular rabbit dish is, or at least was, a national dish. I'm sure the recipe could be found online.

[Texas Ranger]

1fried rabbit cut into pieces
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 garlic cloves
50gr lard
200gr tomato puree
400gr chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon sugar
200gr peas
2 medium onions finely chopped
2 chopped carrots
2 bay leaves
1 glass red wine
salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon mixed spice
280ml stock (chicken or vegetable)
3 large potatoes cut in small cubes

Before proceeding with the method I would like to give you a tip. The rabbit will have a better flavour if it is marinated overnight. This is my way of doing it:
1 glass red wine
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 – 3 tablespoons garlic sauce
mixed herbs

Mix the 4 ingredients and pour over the rabbit. Leave it overnight covered. In the morning the rabbit will have a lovely garlic smell. Now let's get on with the stew..............
In a large frying pan fry the rabbit in 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil with lots of garlic. Leave ti to cook covered until it is golden brown.

While the rabbit is still frying you can start preparing the stew. In a large saucepan melt the lard, then add the finely chopped onions and stir occasionally for about 8 minutes or until the onion is soft and tranclucent but not brown. Then add the chopped carrots and chopped tomatoes. Cook over a gentle heat for a further 10 minutes. Add the wine and stock, tomato puree and sugar and stir well. Add the bay leaves, seasoning, herbs, peas, potatoes and finally the fried rabbit pieces. Let the stew to simmer for about an hour or until the rabbit and potatoes are cooked through. Stir the stew frequently so that it does not burn. You can tell when the rabbit is cooked by piercing the meat with a knife. The meat should be soft in texture.
Don't let it overcook or else the rabbit will melt and you will have to search for the small pieces, and I can assure you that you will lose your patience.
Once it's cooked you can serve it with a salad. If you don't like stewed potatoes like my husband, you can eliminate them and instead fry some chips or fried rice. Make sure that you have a large loaf of bread because once you start dipping in the sauce you will want more!! – It's really delicious.

You can preserve half of the sauce for the next day and serve it as a pasta dish. Spaghetti are the best. Add some parmesan cheese and you're done.

Thanks to http://www.ciao.co.uk/Recipes_for_Main_Courses__Review_5559362 for this recipe.

[WildDog]

Guys im interested, whats a box trap?.

ErikC I skin rabbits pretty well the same only thing I do different is I make a cut behind the neck as well.

I usually only bake rabbit, like the sound of Tom and Jeffs fried rabbits.

Heres a trick if you don't want any bullet holes in your rabbit, fire a shot just over its head close to the skull to stun it then you can run up and net/grab it. Up untill a couple of years back at work we had to release the Calicivirus for rabbit control programs, this required catching 20 or so live rabbits and injecting them with the virus. The stun method was the quickest way, just had the scope set high. These days the virus comes frozen and we just put it on carrots. When myxomotosis is opperating in area and the main vector is fleas not mosquitos we shoot a stack of rabbits and put them down burrows, fleas and all in other areas. Last year we moved the dead rabbits 200 miles to spread the myxo....appologies, getting of topic.

Down here we call rabbit under ground mutton  

[SwampDonkey]

Guys im interested, whats a box trap?.

Here is my box trap for squirrels. It's spring door is kept, by resting on a floor platform. You put the bate on the platform to the back of the box. The door closes behind the animal when he steps on the platform for the bate. I lined the inside of the box with wire on the wood because squirrels can chew through wood and get free.

[Jeff]

1fried rabbit cut into pieces

So, is this recipe for "re-fried" rabbit since you have to start out with a fried rabbit?"  ;)

[isawlogs]

I make sausage with them,   ;)  I save up five or six , get same amount of porc shoulder /lb of rabbit and grind it up with the spices 

[Chris Burchfield]

In this part of the South we fry'em.

[Radar67]

My favorite rabbit recipe for fried rabbit is to soak the meat in milk over night for the first step. Crush up a cup of frosted flakes cereal real fine and mix with your flour. Take meat from milk and let excess drain off, double batter with flour and fry.

[pineywoods]

Around here, we have 2 different species of wild rabbit. Regular old cottontails, fry 'em like WDH says. Then there's what we call swamp rabbit or cane cutter. Much larger and usually very tough meat. Mom pressure cooked them for a while, then ground them into sausage, which was then fried.

[ErikC]

 As far as cooking them goes, I like fried pretty well. And we make the rabbit dumplings, it's good too. But we pressure cooked a couple of bigger ones two or three months ago, and pulled it all apart with our favorite BBq sauce, like pulled pork for sandwiches. That was the best rabbit I have had.  8) 8)

[Tom]

We've got swamp rabbit too.  It has a brown tail and, even though people say they are different, I haven't been able to tell the difference.  We would shoot both from the orange groves and mostly just swamp rabbit from the Mangrove swamps at the beach.

[bugdust]

Here in WV we are big on hunting rabbits. A couple years ago I came up with the idea of boning out the legs and running them through the tenderizer (the tenderizer is typically used in the meat shop when cutting up deer.) The tenderizer does a great job of making a nice little "rabbit steak." Just follow any of these instructions for frying.

[Mooseherder]

How do you catch a unique Rabbit? ;D

[Dan_Shade]

unique up on it!

[Mooseherder]

Okay, how about a Tame wabbit?

[Dan_Shade]

da tame way

[Mooseherder]

Yup!  Tame way.
Unique up on it. :D

[SwampDonkey]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlVqfC8-UI


;D

[SwampDonkey]

Shish-Ka Bugs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDe8fTgVUZw

[SwampDonkey]

Rabbit Stew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOxekpmGWPs

[trapper]

wildddog sorry it took so long to reply but I had to learn how to post pictuires

[WildDog]

Thanks for the nice pics Trapper, definately no need for appologies. I have never seen traps like that used for rabbits. We use similar traps at work for foxs where its too close to settlements to use baits.