Yesterday we took a trip to the states. I originally wanted to have fish for supper, but the 2 places we went to were a bust. So instead we ended up doing our grocery shopping just before crossing back into Canada, and grabbed some general items like steak and chicken. And a rabbit. Both the hubby and I love game meat and it was such a good price ($10) that I just had to grab it.
So tonight’s supper was going to be hasenpfeffer, a traditional german recipe for rabbit. But I wanted to marinate it a bit longer than just a few hours so we’ll be eating it tomorrow. So hopefully I’ll have a new tasty recipe for you around supper time. 😉
But in the meantime, I wanted to post on how to carve up a whole rabbit so I remember how to do it again next time. I did discover I need a proper cleaver though…
CARVING A RABBIT
Lay the rabbit on its back.
Hold a foreleg in one hand, then keeping your knife flush against the rib cage, cut the flesh connecting the foreleg to the shoulder.
The foreleg isn’t connected to bone, so this is easy to do. Repeat with the other foreleg.
Push down on the rabbit’s spine to give you clear sight of the back legs’ thigh muscle connecting to the pelvis.
Cut through the thigh and then bend it back so the ball joint pops out
Cut the meat around the leg, turning the carcass, to separate the leg from the tail joint.
Repeat with the other hind leg.
Chop of the tail / pelvis area (save for the stockpot if you wish)
Count two ribs up from the tail
Chop between the second and third ribs.
Turn the carcass spine-side up, then press down and flatten the spine with the palm of your hand.
Cut along the spine using shears and down the middle on the rib side. This will leave you with the spine that you can put into the stockpot as well.
At this point, I frankly got confused as to what the interwebz wanted me to do, but basically cut along each side the spine (the middle part of the rabbit now) for the “loin” pieces and had another piece of spine to put into the stockpot