I've got a chance to score three roosters and two large rabbits for $15 tomorrow. Whoo hoo! I'm sharpening my knives tonight! After butchering, how long do you rest rabbit meat for?
We marinate the same day and keep no longer than three days until smoking or BBQ. I usually like to eat the next day but have kept them marinating for three days with no problems. We always refrigerate while marinating. We will be doing 6 next week for a weekend BBQ.
I dunno know. Overnight should do it. I have a simple recipe for older rabbit. I'll give it to you in case you would want to try it. Put the cut up rabbit in a roasting pan, pour a can of cream of mushroom soup over it, add some cut up potatoes and some frozen peas, cover and bake in a 325 oven until tender; usually an hour or so. I would usually add some garic powder and pepper and maybe a can of mushroom pieces if I had one lying around. It was a good final solution for those does that had their babies on the wire or otherwise killed their litters.
Thanks. These are 2 mo. old Flemish Giant/NZ crosses so they are at harvesting peak. Thanks for the recipe Cassie, that sounds delicious! My favorite way is to do garlic butter with onions, rosemary, sage, thyme, and tarragon and roast over a bed of vegetables. But I'm always looking for more recipes! I'm going to attempt cervical dislocation on the rabbits with the broom. Wish me luck on that, I've never done it before and I need to get past the fact the bunnies are just so durned adorable. I normally pith chickens (plan to do an instructional video on that, since there is a distinct lack of vids on the subject and I know people are interested.) Boy, this is going to be fun to do in an apartment. LOL!
OK... not to be wickedly evil here but..... Just an FYI on rabbits I have raised them for several years and butchered them. The axe handle, steel pipe, mallet or what ever you use has to be employed correctly or you will get a literal blood curdling scream coming from the soon to be dinner bunny. I really really really suggest that you use a 3/4 inch steel pipe 16-18 inches long. This has the weight needed and the grip to PROPERLY deliver a quick killing blow. We use to hold/hang them by their feet in one hand and lay them on our thigh and slowly pick them up until there were in a vertical position head down. At this point use the pipe or whatever to rub gently down there back to the ears a couple of times to relax them. Then WHAMO!! Followed up by another as a precaution. I would strongly suggest that you practice this on a doll or something that resembles it so you get the feel for what youre doing. I am not trying to be obscene about this but you really owe it to the animal to do it right the first time. If you are in an apartment this will have to be done in the bath tub, just trust me on this. You also have to make sure you will have enough room for a full swing. If done wrong your neighbors may call the cops if they here that rabbit going WFO on a scream.
2 months is a tender age. You should be able to cervically dislocate the bunny by hand/broom easily. Practice first if you haven't tried it before and do it harder than you think till you find out how hard you really need to pull. If you go for it, go for it and don't hesitate b/c you don't want it to suffer or scream. As for doing it in an apartment... that's what I do on our balcony when we get fresh meat while away at school. We just lay down plastic bags to protect the ground just in case, but I've done enough animals to get 99.5% of the blood into a bucket. Just remember to hold and hold and wait an extra 60 seconds past any twitching before you let go, or they will flick blood onto the walls.... trust me on that one. Oh, for your q, I usually age overnight or up to 3 days for young ones. I let an old rabbit sit for a week before cooking and he was still a bit tough. He was probably 5 months old or so.
Ok, I got them done. I ended up getting a third rabbit for free because the lady really needed to get rid of her, but was too attached to her to harvest her or let her husband do it. But she was ok with letting someone else do it. I did the broom handle cervical dislocation. I wouldn't try to do the "blow to the head" thing because I have issues with my hands and no coordination. It took quite a bit of strength with the broom, surprisingly (I've never done it before). The first and third time went fine, but the second was a partial botch. The rabbit kicked at the last second and twisted, so I didn't get a good pull and it started thrashing. I quickly picked it up and wrung it's neck, but I felt that the first time had broken it. It was especially hard to bleed and skin them without being able to hang them. Took freaking forever to get the skin off, and the pelts weren't cut as nicely as I would have liked. But I did all right, and I have the three skins soaking out the blood so I can put them in the freezer until the alum I ordered arrives so I can tan them. So I have three nice roasts resting in the fridge A bag of hearts, lungs, kidneys, and livers in the freezer. A bag of feet, tails, and heads that will be ground into dog food. And three beautiful green skins that I know someone would like to buy when I finish curing and stretching them. A good day so far. Another question, the free third was a 6 mo. old doe. Is she going to need to rest longer and be cooked slower since she's older?
hats off to you!!! you kicked butt! you can hang them from a coat hanger by their back legs, one leg tied to each corner, then the hook over a door handle.
