Temptation, thy name is Rabbit Fricasee.

[troy2000]

On a lighter subject: I've been helping my mother-in-law move into a young neighborhood in Murrieta, CA. Across from her new home is a nice little neigborhood park, that's tucked in between the street and some chapparel (California's hillside brushlands).

The other evening I did a u-turn about an hour after dark, and my headlights showed the park's grass was alive with cottontails. I counted 23 before I quit, and they all looked ridiculously fat and healthy. Good thing for them I'm relatively law-abiding, because I immediately started daydreaming of pellet guns and fricaseed rabbits.

Rabbits cut up and browned in olive oil and butter; slow-simmered with carrots, onions, celery, herbs and spices; the resulting stock reduced down and doubled again with half and half, then thickened with a nice, slow-cooked roux of butter and flour; the rabbit pieces dropped back into the resulting gravy and reheated; black pepper and lemon juice stirred in as the pot comes off the heat....then I started thinking about home-made potatoes (mashed, not whipped); big, flaky, baking-powder biscuits and butter; corn on the cob, and sweet-potato pie.

You know what? I'm not so sure those grass-fattened cottontails are safe after all. If anything stops me, it'll be the desire not to embarrass Mom in front of her new neighbors. Although she'd probably forgive me, as long as she gets a plate...

[Uncle Red]

Sounds good to me!! When is dinner?? Several years ago, someone I know used CB shorts in a .22 rifle to take a squirrel outside the bathroom window inside city limits. I was told that was one of the best stews eaten that season. Hence forth it was known as “bathroom huntin’.” -UR

[Apollyon67]

mmmm Rabbit... it's whats for dinner!! Your Mom teach you to cook like that? Kudos to her if she did. Rabbit stew sounds pretty tasty too. quick question for you folks out there that cook. Corn starch or flour for thickening and why?

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by Apollyon67

mmmm Rabbit... it's whats for dinner!! Your Mom teach you to cook like that? Kudos to her if she did. Rabbit stew sounds pretty tasty too. quick question for you folks out there that cook. Corn starch or flour for thickening and why?

I was second-oldest of eight kids, and started working outside the home when I was about fourteen. My sisters gotstuck in the kitchen (yes, it was sexist. On the other hand, I don't think they would have enjoyed using a short-handled hoe in the desert heat). But she taught by example, I guess: I got to find out what good food looked and tasted like.

Unless it's for something delicate, I generally go with flour. One reason is that it isn't neutral, like corn starch, and that's a good thing. You can cook it just enough to make a creamy, bland white sauce, or stir it in a dry pan over the fire until it's seriously dark and almost bitter before making breakfast gravy. You can slow cook it in butter for hours to make a roux as light or dark as you want, and every change in color changes the taste.

[odf 1bn]

i have a friend that shot a squirrel off a tree with a compound bow out the back door inside the city limits

[Stopper]

squirrels out the wazzo around here and some fat ones at that. Dang good eat'n. In all my years of hunting out in western kansass, I had never seen a jack rabbit. Kicked one up while pheasant hunting last season and just about messed meself. Dang thing was as big as a beagal and I'd bet anyone i was more scared than that jack was, for a couple of seconds anywho. At least until i remembered the 12ga in my hands.

[dhermesc]

I've only seen one jackrabbit in my life, picked it out of the grill of my brother's pickup. Then I had to help install the new radiator. Cottontail looks too much like a rat when it’s skinned to be really appetizing.

[troy2000]

I shot a gopher out my kitchen window one time in El Monte, CA with a .22 short; I was living out of my garden because the VA had screwed up my GI Bill payments for three months running. Didn't occur to me to eat him, but it would have been poetic justice, since he ate so much of the garden.

I've seen lots of jackrabbits. Never bothered to shoot one, though; they look too bony.

Rat tastes just fine too, dhermesc. In places like the Philippines, they drive 'em out of the rice patties. Since they've been fed on rice shoots and the like, they're as good eatin' as anything else, and very mild in flavor.

Rabbit Fricassee

Source: "Adapted from American Heritage Cookbook (1964)"
Recipe By :Chef James
Serving Size : 4

Amount Measure Ingredient
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 Whole Rabbit -- quartered
As Needed Flour -- as needed
1/4 Cup Butter
Salt and Pepper -- to taste

1 Medium Yellow Onion -- chopped fine
1 1/2 Cups Red Wine
1/4 Whole Lemon, Zest From
2 Sprigs Parsley
2 Stalks Celery
1 Each Bay Leaf

1 Tablespoon Butter
1 Tablespoon Flour

Chopped Parsley -- garnish


Directions:
Cut the rabbit into serving pieces and dust with flour.

Heat butter in a skillet with a tight-fitting lid, add rabbit pieces, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Fry until nicely browned on all sides.

Now stir in onion and cook for a few minutes.

Next, pour in the wine. Tie Lemon rind, parsley, celery, and bay leaf in a little cheesecloth and drop into the skillet. Cover and simmer gently until meat is tender - takes about 1 hour.

Lift rabbit onto a hot serving platter. Discard seasoning bag.

Work flour and butter together until well blended, then add to liquid, and cook, stirring constantly, until sauce bubbles.

Pour over rabbit and sprinkle top with chopped parsley.

They smoke up just fine. Wash them if they are fresh kill, soak
in salt water over night and don't forget to clean all the shot
out of them. Rinse again in the morning and pat dry with a paper
towel. I sprinkle garlic salt and black pepper only on old "Bugs"
then drape pieces of uncooked bacon over the top. Rabbit is lean
meat and the bacon helps to keep it moist as well as add's a little
flavor. Hold the bacon in place with toothpicks. Set "Bugs" on
your smoker and start adding the wood. Most rabbits are small and
only take about 4 hrs. to be completely done. You can cut the
pieces up first for a quicker cooking time, but you lose some
moisture doing that.

[troy2000]

Smoked rabbit sounds good...I have an old Brinkman water smoker I used to make catfish beer snacks with.

[Hank Springer]

Nobody but an old cajun cook would ask this kind of stuff, but here goes.
How do we know how old a rabbit is ?
Who knows what a skinned rat looks like, or will admit to it ?
As far as cooking brother rabbit goes, first be sure he's a wild rabbit. By wild we don't mean to refer to his social behavior so much as where he lives and what he eats. If he lives in the wilderness, he's eating all the right stuff and we can save the space required to list that. Leave his domesticated cousin to the Brits since he has about as much flavor as a store bought chicken.
Rabbit is best fried, grilled, stewed, in a creole sauce or a gumbo.
Anybody interested in how each of these in done, in real life, e-mail me and I'll click on that little return thing and tell you only the truth. It's good and won't hurt you none 'les you get your thumbs cought 'tween the bricks.

[troy2000]

Easiest way to know a rabbit's age is to be personally acquainted with him. I usually just pretty much figure all wild ones are tough, but it seems to me that if you put two side-by-side that were taken the same day and place, the younger one's a little plumper, and has brighter-colored meat and softer membranes. I'd hate to bet my dinner on being right, though.

I'll admit to knowing what a skinned rat looks like; it's pretty pathetic. But they taste good anyway, if they grew up wild in the fields and patties.

[jerry]

Hank,
I'd sure be interested. If it's good enough for a founding father it's good enough for me. Did ya'll know if you lived on a diet of rabbit alone, you'd starve. That's why I like mine w/ biscuits and gravy :right:

BTW,
I shot some in AZ that the meat was crawling w/ worms. Needless to say, those didn't get et.

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by jerry

Hank,
I'd sure be interested. If it's good enough for a founding father it's good enough for me. Did ya'll know if you lived on a diet of rabbit alone, you'd starve. That's why I like mine w/ biscuits and gravy :right:

BTW,
I shot some in AZ that the meat was crawling w/ worms. Needless to say, those didn't get et.

and we didn't hunt rabbits in the summer because we firmly believed they had worms in hot weather. Didn't know anyone who ever tested the idea; it was just conventional wisdom not to shoot 'em in months that didn't "have an 'R' for rabbit" in their names.

[Hank Springer]

I don't think I'd go for wormy rabbits. I'm sure the Army would encourage their consumption as high protein food.
The juicier the bugs the more energy you get from them.
My favorite rabbit is fried to a medium brown and then simmered in gravy until the meat is turning loose from the bones. Serve that over basic cajun rice with biscuits or Desport's bread.
We have to waite until Desport's bakery can be rebuilt. That hurricane Katrina flattened the whole operation. They've been down before and always come back.
I cheated and used a generator to keep my supply of Desports frozen. I had just picked up sixty packages two days before the storm.

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by Hank Springer

...I cheated and used a generator to keep my supply of Desports frozen. I had just picked up sixty packages two days before the storm.

And there are some acts that don't need to be explained.

By the way, Hank: don't know if you're into sourdoughs, but the best I ever made was in a ceramic crock that had held rice, and still had a layer of rice dust in it. It had a tang almost like sour apple, and I may never forgive my wife for letting go bad while I was working out of town. Had I known she held no respect or such things, I'd have frozen some.

[Hank Springer]

I very much enjoy sourdough. I'm sorry you so tragically lost yours. It sounds like you had a special batch. Try to duplicate it.

[auspighunter]

there are heaps of rabbits outside my front door we often have rabbit crap in our front yard im a bit worried ab out using the 22 with shorts at the front and cant get a hold of a slug gun is there any way to trap them or sumfin any suggestions guys

[Hank Springer]

When I was a kid I used a Benjamin pellet rifle to harvest rabbits. The sound produced is minimal and with about eight to ten strokes of the lever it produced enough power to shoot completely through the head at thirty yards or so. Total penetration of the head was rare, due mainly to deformation of the soft lead pellet, but the striking power was always sufficient for a clean kill.
My favorite hunting irons for rabbits today are a 1911 .45, and Smith and Wesson model 19.
There are live capture style traps available and it's easy enough to make your own.
By the way, when hunting for food, shoot only the rabbits that appear energetic and healthy. Any slow moving or funny acting rabbits are usually sick.