Bucks and Rabbits

D

DocT

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Mar 25, 2012
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When I had the joy of rabbit hunting, I would clean them with my 301 or 303. More knife is not needed, even with the largest hare. Rabbits are best if they are cleaned on the spot and allowed to cool quickly. Like antelope, if you do not cool them quickly and get the entrails out they will get gamey tasting.

When I got home, I would cook them. Sometimes i would batter and fry them. However, one of my favorite ways is to cook them French style.

I would put just a little extra virgin olive oil in a deep frying pan and "brown", but not cook, the rabbit pieces I previously cut up. After that, I would remove the rabbit and add flour to brown for gravy. When that was ready, I would add a can of chicken broth and make the gravy. Then I would add a cup of white wine, garlic, pepper, and salt and put the rabbit back into the pan. The whole thing would go, covered, into the oven at 350 F for an hour or so, until the meat was coming off the bones. The smell alone will make your tongue slap your brains out.

How do you folks cook them?
 
Doc, that sounds very tasty. Growing up we at a lot of rabbit and sometimes swamp rabbit. My Grandfather having gone thru the Depression would not touch it. My mother
would marinade 1-2 cottontail over night in salt water. The next morning she would rinse and apply spices, pepper, garlic, basil with olive oil and
allow it to sit in this until evening. Then remove dip in a egg & roll in flour w/ rosemary and place in a skillet with hot olive oil and fry until brown. (the manner in the south) Then remove and the cut up potatoes would go in. Then strain most of the oil off and make a brown gravy.
With light crust Dough Boy biscuits pulled out of the oven. My Grandmother would bring a gallon of fresh milk from the Jersey cow and a picture
of Sweet tea. After us boys got thru there wasn't much left. DM
 
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Doc, when I was younger we used to hunt the Katy Prairie at night for cottontail. There was no limit and it wasn't unusual for us to get 30 or more a hunt and the farmers were happy to get rid of them.

I always felt like Bubba from Forrest Gump. We ate fried rabbit, baked rabbit, roasted rabbit, rabbit jumbalaya, rabbit stew...

Pete
 
Love rabbit! That and squirrel, but even in Iowa(home of the farm) there are so many "city people" that the looks I get when people find out I eat either are unreal. More for us, they don't know what they're missing.
 
they say we have marsh and eastern cottontails. i havent ever seen any rabbits where i am and go. only rabbits ive ever seen where pets escaped. when i was out in north texas rabbits were all over those rolling hills at night. so many almost couldnt not step on one while walking.
 
Tame rabbits make fine eating too. You can buy rabbit in many grocery stores that were raised to be eaten.

David, that fried rabbit sounds about right, and very good. We did not have olive oil in my part of the South, but we did have corn and vegetable oil so that is what we used for fried rabbit.
 
Peanuts were grown and we had that oil mostly. We raised tame rabbits and neighbors came and bought them as well. These are not a true rabbit.They are a lagomorph and it has to do with their upper incisors. ( a double pair) Ears, size and length of hair is also different. But they
sure were good to eat. There is not as much knife work to do on them during processing as compared to a chicken. I used a 107 Scout, earlier a slip lock. DM
 
David....My Grandpa lived with us & would fry rabbit on occasion.
Reading your story took me back to those days.
We'd have biscuits & mashed potatoes & a vegetable...That was Hi dollar livin!
Mom was a Helluva cook,but wouldn't cook some of the wild game we'd bring home?
 
zak, my Mom wouldn't cook every thing we'd bring home. She would Not cook a racoon or possum. Duck, Geese, squirrel, rabbit, quail & dove,
and all the fish were no problem. Also bullfrogs & deer she would cook. The black tailed Jack rabbit we used for fish bait. Turtle and crayfish my wife would make a gumbo or stew with it. Which was really her specialty being a Bama girl. I've had some wild hog but mostly I raised them. DM
 
When I was growing up, when the new chocolate rabbits were born at Eastertide, we'd carve them up with our Buck's and eat till we were sick. But I digress.
 
Cottontails were in abundance some decades ago. Since the elimination of DDT the hawks have increased so much the rabbit population has drastically reduced.
 
David, your wife is from AL. Do you know about tomato gravy? I love the stuff. After we cleaned the rabbits with our Buck knives, we would fry the rabbit pieces in vegetable or corn oil. Then, we would remove the rabbit and put flour in the oil and stir it till brown. Then we would add a bunch of home canned tomatoes, the water to thin, and salt and black pepper. You put that on biscuits or rice and eat it with the rabbit. Man, that is heaven.
 
26 years ago when my daughter was 14 and my son 12 a neighbor gave them 4 or 5 white rabbits and a cage. .They were raised for meat and they got tired of taking care of them. My wife put her foot down and said no killing so I put the cage on the ground and left the door open and had the kids keep food and water by the cage for them.They stayed close to the house but after 4 months I would see them all over the 10 acres in my family's hands. We seen the last pure white one 4 years later and the last light colored 3 years after that. .They really stuck out in the green fields.
 
Bucksway, just tell your wife they are Argentine chickens, or something and don't let her see them before you prepare them :D
 
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