Rabbit is freely available here, either fresh or frozen farmed rabbit, or fresh wild rabbit. I don’t often cook it and if I do I casserolle it. The cliche is it’s like chicken, and it is imo. But it’s less meaty and relatively boney. If you had difficulty sourcing it perhaps that’s because it’s not popular? If you raise your own are you equipped to kill it?

Yes, I've eaten rabbit my whole life, both wild and domesticated. And I've raised and processed my own, but it's a process I dislike and the final product isn't worth the work to me.

As floral says, it's relatively boney. I have pressure canned it, but it has a lot of tiny little bones that you'll be constantly picking out of the very well cooked meat if you can it with bones in. If you remove it from the bone, it's tedious and time consuming.

I've eaten rabbit my whole life, my brother used to hunt for small game and would bring home wild rabbits that he shot. Usually it was made into stew, because a couple of small wild rabbits would feed six people that comprised my family if you added enough vegetables. Grandma also would cook the meat until it came off the bones easily, pick the bones out and make rabbit meat in gravy to be served over biscuits. Occasionally we would have it soaked in buttermilk and then fried, like chicken, and more recently, we've put a couple in the smoker. I actually liked that the best of all the applications.

Good luck with your experiment. Rabbit is mild, and domesticated is even milder than wild rabbit, so it can be fixed various ways without competing with other flavors. It's also low in fat and high in protein, a sustainable and healthy choice as long as you can find someone to slaughter them, or have the patience to do it yourself.

Annie

Weird. I posted a reply, bu but it’s not here.

To repeat, thank you, both. Clearly, the food culture here in the US is not as comfortable with rabbit as the UK. Yes, we would kill the rabbits ourselves, for our own consumption.

Well, we made delicious rabbit paprikash. I find it very similar to chicken. My sister cooked in an instant pot first, then removed the bones and added it to the stew.

Annie, let me first say that there is probably no one who’s opinion and advice I respect more than yours, when it comes to food production and preservation. Could you comment further on the patience required to process/butcher rabbit? From what I have seen online, the butchering is easier than chickens. There is no scalding and plucking involved, and the skins come off pretty easily. But, first hand experience trump youtube videos.

Well, we cooked the rabbit, in a paprikash stew recipe, and it didn’t sit well with me. The taste was fine, but it seemed somehow too rich for my digestive tract. I’m truly disappointed, because I was hoping for a sustainable source of protein. Oh well. I guess we’ll stick with chickens.

Well, that's too bad, maybe it was the low fat/high protein level in rabbit meat. Or maybe it's just something that's not going to settle well for you.

I saw a pen full of bunnies at the local feed store a couple of days ago and thought of you. They were $15 each, certainly too expensive to eat very many of them, but they were cute.

Annie