Title: Wild Rabbit Presentation
Categories: Game Info
Yield: 1 Servings

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When I want to do a really spectacular presentation, I always french a rack of rabbit. It honestly is not that hard if you scrape with a knife and are careful to remove all the membrane between the ribs.

I recommend brushing the exposed bones with olive oil (heck, brush the whole thing, and while you're at it, crush a clove of garlic and some rosemary and add that to the oil. Yum.) If you don't, and you roast at high temperatures, the ends of the bones can crisp and become brittle or burned.

My presentation for rabbit goes like this, starting with the whole animal. I debone all four legs (hindlegs and thighs in one piece, forelimbs and shoulders in one piece, remove all bone). I pound the pieces of meat flat under plastic wrap with a mallet, stuff them with a mixture of fresh herbs, bread crumbs and prosciutto, or perhaps blue cheese and walnuts and basil, and tie them into rolls.

Then I trim the saddle, which is the part in front of the pelvis which you just removed the thighs from, into one neat long section that ends at the bottom of the ribcage. Put the saddle aside for roasting whole, or you can take it into small saddle chops.

I use scissors to remove the bottom half of the ribcage (the belly portion), and then cut the neck portion that sticks out above the ribcage.

Using either a cleaver and mallet or a professional meat saw, I cut the backbone in half the rib rack and slice the saddle into tiny saddle chops, roughly one vertebrae each or 1/3 inch. Then I french the rack of ribs scraping with a knife.

I recommend tying the saddle chops back together for roasting with oiled cotton thread; this gives better temperature control. Attempting to take a cleaver or meat saw through a whole cooked saddle is a bit more problematical than tying back together a cut raw saddle, as I discovered early on in my gourmet rabbit-munching career.

At this point, you're ready for roasting. Brush the whole kit and caboodle with lovely flavored oil, then roll in a mixture of powdered chanterelle mushrooms and crushed hazelnuts (porcini and pistachio works great on venison, BTW). Make sure exposed bone ends are covered with oil. I suggest roasting at moderately high temperatures for a fairly short time, say 400 degrees for 8 to 12 minutes. You want the meat thoroughly done (white), but not dry.

Take the remainder of the scraps - bones, flank, liver, heart, etc - and boil them down for stock. Drain and shred the boiled meat, and for a serious treat, add some pine nuts and white truffles or white truffle oil to this rabbit pate. Use the stock for cooking down risotto, and serve with tiny baby artichoke heads or if you live in a compatible area, harvest, boil and serve the young heads of wild thistle.

This proceedure really doesn't take terribly long (maybe an hour to prep the bunny for cooking), and the end result is spectacular. Warning: do not use old, tough rabbits, which are best dredged in seasoned flour and simmered in sour cream and lemon juice under a blanket of good home-cured sugar bacon until tender. Pick young, tender Thumpers for roasting.

I once made a companion's eyeballs nearly drop out of their sockets with this presentation. What was even more startling is that I had begun with roadkill and weeds and ended up with a gourmet meal equivalent to what he'd been served in the finest French restaurants. We live in an area that is highly populated by very tasty wild rabbits, and one young (tender) and foolish bunny sacrificed itself to a car directly ahead of us, losing its skull but nothing else to an oncoming tire.

My religion doesn't allow for wasting fresh killed meat, so I bounced from the car and grabbed Mr. Bunny while my companion looked on in dismay. I whistled cheerily and commented, "Mmmm, just in time for dinner," as I sacked it up along with some edible wild thistles. Yep, the Wiccan religion has really only one dietary law, and that's it. Don't waste good food, especially if something died to make that food happen.

My companion eyed me dubiously as I dumped my bounty on the kitchen table and started to work, wearing latex gloves not out of particular squeamishness but out of reasonable precautions against tularemia, a good idea in California. A few hours later, I had one nice rabbit hide and a dinner to make any gourmet sigh in ecstasy - beautifully presented salmis of rabbit with frenched rack and saddle served over risotto with white truffle rabbit pate and boiled new thistle buds with sweet butter. As I recall, the side salad involved fresh raspberries, spinach and blood oranges with a splash of aged balsamico.

Mmm. Quite an outcome from roadkill and weeds. Try it sometime - and you can even start with a store-bought Thumper instead if you like. ;)

Regards, Tanith From: pleasure@netcom.com

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