My husband hunts for rabbit in the winter and I cook what he brings home. The main trick with rabbit is to marinade it for several days as it is a very dry meat. That's why it's low-cal!Here is how we do rabbit:
In a large covered dish, mix 1 onion roughly chopped with 2 Tbsp of Pickling Spice, 1/4 to 1/2 cup of white vinegar and 1 Tbsp. salt. Add the rabbit which you have left whole or sectioned as you wish - I like to use whole legs, breast divided in two - basically fairly large chunks of meat on the bone. Cover with water. Cover the dish and put in the fridge for 3 days. Turn the rabbit daily. It will turn white so don't worry when you see this change.
After 3 days rinse the rabbit and brown it slightly in butter. Put the pieces in a casserole dish or a slow cooker. Add sliced or whole mushrooms (your choice, I prefer whole or halved), a chopped onion and 1 can of mushroom soup. I like to add a 1/2 cup of white wine. Add any spices you like - salt, pepper, some fine herbes - it's a personal taste thing with spices.
Cover the casserole dish for the first 30 minutes and bake at 350' for one hour (the last half hour is uncovered)
If you are using a slow cooker, cook it on high for 3 hours. I prefer the oven for this dish but try both and see which you like.
Instead of using the mushroom soup you can make your own gravy from the drippings in the fry pan after you browned the rabbit. My mother-in-law likes to roll the rabbit pieces in flour first and then brown them.
We like homemade thick crusty bread as a side dish with this stew but you could make dumplings or biscuits. I usually keep the vegetables pretty simple with this dish - plain carrots (steamed or boiled) are nice with the stew.
Comments