For most of us, February is the last month we’ll have a chance to hunt till the early seasons roll around again next fall. This is also rabbit time. The season for hunting cottontails and swamp rabbits remains open statewide through Feb. 28, and many Arkansas hunters are enjoying a last taste of the winter outdoors while gathering fresh game for the dinner table.
We’ll be among these late-season nimrods, hoping to bag a few rabbits to eat. A few will make it to the freezer to tide us over until the next small-game season. Most, however, will be cooked fresh from the field. We love a hot game meal when it’s still cold outside, and as far as we’re concerned, no game is more delicious than rabbit.
Few wild game meats are as delectable and versatile. Rabbit is delicate, white and lean, with just a hint of gaminess. It can be cooked in every conceivable way, from simply fried, baked or roasted to stews, casseroles and pies. The taste is comparable to that of chicken, and recipes for the two are interchangeable.
Rabbits were the first game animals I pursued and the first I learned to cook. Perhaps that’s why they’re still my favorite, on the table and in the field.
When I was younger, I hunted cottontails every week of the season, and whenever I camped with friends, we would kill several rabbits for dinner and spit-roast them over a campfire with nothing more than a sprinkling of salt and pepper to season them. Those rabbits were especially good because we ate them right there where we killed them, fresh from nature’s larder. They were good because we had killed them. They were good because they were cooked over a campfire built in the fresh air of a cold winter night with the barred owls calling around us and the stars twinkling overhead.
That’s when all game is best, we think — when you’re out there and you can feel that primitive, deep-down-in-your-soul connection with the animal you’re eating. It’s a feeling you never forget, a feeling that tells you this is right; this is the way it was meant to be. One animal dies and is eaten by another, and in the eating, a circle is completed.
Later in life, when I discovered an interest in cooking wild-game dishes, rabbit became the basis for many of my experiments. It proved itself delicious in scores of different ways — basted in a rich barbecue sauce, smothered in fiery sauce piquant, slow-cooked in a thick brown gravy, fried in a crunchy coating of corn flakes and butter, diced in a quick-made hash. I have never found a bad recipe in which rabbit was the main ingredient.
Here are some of the ways I’ll be serving up rabbits this year. Perhaps you’ll enjoy these recipes, too.
Fried Rabbit, Arkansas Style
Ingredients:
1 rabbit, cut in serving pieces
1 1/8 cups water
1 hot pepper
4 garlic cloves, sliced
1 cup milk
2 eggs, slightly beaten
Flour well-seasoned with salt and pepper
1/2 cup shortening
Directions:
Parboil the rabbit in water with pepper and garlic until tender but not yet falling off the bones. Drain. Combine the milk and eggs in a shallow bowl. Dip the rabbit pieces in the egg mixture, dredge in seasoned flour, and fry in heated shortening until done to taste. Serves 2 to 3.
Grandma’s Rabbit Stew
Ingredients:
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 rabbits, cut in serving pieces
5 cups water
2 cups coarsely shredded cabbage
2 cups fresh or frozen whole-kernel corn
1 cup chopped onion
2/3 cup chopped green onions
1 cup diced potatoes
1/2 cup peeled and sliced carrots
1/2 cup chopped canned tomatoes
1/4 cup green beans
1/4 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup uncooked rice
1 clove garlic, minced
Directions:
Combine salt, black pepper and cayenne, and use the mixture to season the rabbit pieces. Brown the rabbit in vegetable oil heated in a large stew pot. Add the remaining ingredients, and stir well. Bring to a boil; then reduce the heat and simmer, loosely covered, 2 to 3 hours or until the rabbit and vegetables are tender. Serves 10 to 12.
Rabbit With Mushroom Sauce
Ingredients:
1 cottontail rabbit, cut in serving pieces
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 (10 3/4-ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 (8-ounce) carton sour cream
1 (4-ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained
1/3 cup dry sherry
Directions:
Place the rabbit in a large pot, cover with water, and parboil, covered, until tender. Dredge the rabbit pieces in a mixture of the flour, salt and pepper, and brown lightly in a skillet with vegetable oil. Combine the remaining ingredients in a saucepan to make mushroom sauce. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until thoroughly heated. Serve the rabbit pieces with sauce spooned on top. Serves 2 to 3.
Slow-cooked Canecutter in Molasses Barbecue Sauce
Ingredients:
1 swamp rabbit (canecutter), cut in serving pieces
Salt to taste
2/3 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup red-wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon minced onion
Directions:
Season the meat pieces with salt. Place them in a slow cooker. Mix the remaining ingredients, and pour over the meat. Cover and cook on low for
8 hours. Serves 4 to 6.
Rabbit Smothered in Onions
Ingredients:
2 small young rabbits, cut in serving pieces
Salt and cayenne pepper to taste
1 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup flour
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
1 small bell pepper, chopped
Water
Directions:
Season the rabbit with salt and cayenne, and brown in oil in a deep cast-iron skillet or Dutch oven. Sprinkle flour on the rabbit pieces as they brown. When all the rabbit is browned, add the onions, bell pepper and 1/2 cup warm water. Cover the pot, and cook on low heat about 1 hour or until the rabbit is tender, adding small amounts of water as necessary to prevent sticking. When ready to serve, add a small amount of milk to the pan drippings to make gravy. Serve over cooked rice.
Serves 2 to 4.