I cooked rabbit for the first time
Rabbits
I have ordered rabbit occasionally from restaurant menus. I’ve enjoyed eating rabbit, but I never have cooked it.
I shop for meat at Guerra Meats at 490 Taraval Street in San Francisco, California, where I live. This charming store was opened by Mark and Battista Guerra in 1954, and I often hear the butchers greet their customers by name.
On March 28, 2011 when I was shopping there for boneless chicken breast, I saw that a full rabbit only cost $1 more per pound. I purchased the rabbit and the butcher cut it up on a floor mounted serious looking band saw with no blade guard protecting the 12 inches of exposed blade. His fingers were quite close to that blade as he made about 10 cuts in short order. I cringed watching him work as I am so much more careful when working around power tools, and my neighbor told me a story only weeks ago where a butcher friend of his was cutting frozen meat on a band saw and cut a handful of fingers off and didn’t know it because his hands were so numb from the cold. His coworkers alerted him when they saw blood everywhere. Ouch!
Yesterday, March 29, 2011, I made two meals from the rabbit. I cut off about 4 ounces of meat and made one of my Chinese recipes, with snow peas, mushrooms, zuchinni, onions and red bell pepper. The result was delicious. Rabbit is close in taste to chicken. It’s a bit more substantial I found.
Later, I fried the remaining rabbit as if I were making fried chicken. This was even better than the Chinese dish. I found the rabbit to be more flavorful than chicken, so much so that it really was finger licking good. It was scrumptious.
Now I’m wondering if I could ever bring myself to raise rabbits for meat. The book Urban Homesteading that inspired me to try urban homesteading makes it sound easy. Rabbits are so cute and cuddly I don’t know if I could ever kill one to eat.
Have any of my readers killed a rabbit, duck, chicken or quail for food to eat personally? If so, please write a comment describing how it felt and how difficult it is.
