5.07.2009

My Rabbit Story


This meal has a long story attached to it, but unfortunately I did a lousy job of taking pictures, so you'll just have to read about it......

One of my coworkers on the farm, Julie, raises pastured meat rabbits. One of the does (breeding females) has been giving her trouble - always getting out, not a good mother...generally not conforming. She escaped last week and all the farm workers had to troop out to the pasture to try and retrieve her. After that, Julie decided that it was time for her to go. She sequestered her in her own cage over the weekend, and on Tuesday drove her to my house and slaughtered her in my backyard.

I didn't take any pictures of the butchering process. It was very interesting to watch - Julie is an expert and explained what she was doing as she did it....The rabbit is stunned by a blow to the back of the head with a pipe, then hung up and the arteries are cut and the blood drains out. Apparently this is the most humane way to go about it....the bleeding is what actually kills it, but it is out cold by the time it gets to that. It was surprisingly easy to watch.....the skinning and gutting were a little more difficult, but still really engrossing.

After it was all done, we put the rabbit in the refrigerator to let the meat age for a few days. I marinated it over night and we had Julie and another of my coworkers over for a grilled rabbit dinner.

We marinated it whole, but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures. Right before we cooked it, Julie helped us cut it up into the pieces you see above. The marinade was really simple: a lot of salt, olive oil, white vermouth, white wine vinegar, chives from the garden, green garlic, powdered rosemary, and a little bit of sucanat..... I marinated it overnight to make sure it would be moist enough. There was a bit of worry about this since it was an older female rabbit that had had litters.

Here it is laid out on the grill.....

I pedaled down to our community garden plot and picked our first batch of asparagus! It was big and beautiful and oh so sweet.....we really lucked out to get a little batch of mature asparagus in our plot. It's purple when raw, but turned green when it was cooked. I tossed it in a little bit of the marinade and put it on the grill just a few minutes before the rabbit was done. Perfect!

If you weren't already getting hungry, this picture should do the trick.....What a beautiful meal!

We ate it with salad from the farm and some locally made sourdough. The rabbit was really really good - denser and more meaty than chicken, but still really white and delicate......I highly recommend it! It was really an experience to go through the whole process: seeing it graze in it's pasture, taking it home, watching the slaughter, marinating the meat, grilling it, and eating it. It's not too often you get to see this sort of thing from beginning to end......
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2 comments:

  1. Yum. With all that good stuff is it bad that the refined carbs still catch my eye?

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  2. Dear Megan,

    My name is Lisa and I work for an online magazine. I've come across your beautiful picture of rabbit on the grill and would love to recommend to my editor to use in our summer issue.Please contact me at Lisa.Newton5@gmail.com to further discuss your amazing photo.
    -Lisa

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