Cooked my rabbit!

galadriel · February 08, 2023, 05:39:03 PM

Last night I cooked the rabbit i arrowed on Sunday.. via instant pot. Made a sauce with mushrooms and onion.. pressure cooked it for 4 min
Turned out perfect.

GCook · February 08, 2023, 05:57:41 PM

Looks great. Instapot makes tender meat dishes.

5deer · February 08, 2023, 06:52:33 PM

yummy

RIVERWOLF · February 08, 2023, 07:18:07 PM

Looks Great !
Best/most important part about taking an animal is , and always should be of cooking & eating it ! Don't have a pressure cooker , but my slow-cooking crockpot does an excellent job with tougher cuts also .

Great to see threads/conversations built around the cooking and enjoying of the game animals we take .
Thanks for posting , and Congratulations on the bunny for the pot !

Terry Green · February 08, 2023, 07:30:57 PM

I can smell it from here!!!

supernaut · February 08, 2023, 07:47:11 PM

Rabbit is excellent and yours looks outstanding!

I think I like eating game as much as I like hunting it. The two just go hand in hand in my opinion.

McDave · February 08, 2023, 07:53:19 PM

I remember in high school reading about a 19th century recipe for cooking rabbit. The first instruction was "first, you have to catch your rabbit." It looks like you covered that and all the other steps too!

galadriel · February 08, 2023, 10:21:21 PM

"first, you have to catch your rabbit."
[/quote]
Recently someone showed me that quote from their cookbook.. lol!
Cooking my game gives me a deep satisfaction in knowing I have some skills in being self sufficient. I look forward to cooking what I catch just as much as getting the catch itself- and much more so in being able to harvest with a trad bow vs a gun (I have a .22 but have never killed anything with it) I have a deep reverence for the life I took- first I feel elated, then sad. I apologize for taking its life, then I make a promise to it (rabbit) that it will not go to waste. If I feel like this over a rabbit what will happen when I actually harvest a deer?? Had many opportunities over the years but it hasn't happened yet.. Does that sound drippy? Blame it on me being female- most women I know aren't hunters. In fact I live in a big city so I'm careful with whom I share this story. But I am also grateful that I can share my experience with like minded people on this site who share that same reverence.
I hope I can find another rabbit before the season ends this month.
Happy hunting everyone !

Maclean · February 08, 2023, 11:56:06 PM

I haven't met a traditional bowhunter yet who doesn't share the same respect and reverence for the animals we kill and eat. It's the purest and most direct way to connect with being, well, human.

McDave · February 09, 2023, 09:12:05 AM

When I was younger, I used to go elk or deer hunting every year with my brother in law in New Mexico. One of the enjoyable things about hunting deer or elk with a traditional bow in New Mexico is that, while you may not get an opportunity to shoot a deer or an elk, you would generally have opportunities to shoot a cottontail or a grouse. These taste great when fried up in a skillet at lunch.

One day toward the beginning of the time when we started hunting together, we met for lunch as agreed at his truck. He asked me if I had seen anything, and I said "no, except for a jackrabbit I took a shot at and missed." He asked me why I had shot at the jackrabbit, since we couldn't eat it. Frankly, the reason I shot at the jackrabbit was because it was there, and I was bored, without giving any thoughts to the ethics of the situation.

He didn't pursue the subject, but what he said made me question my own motives. He wouldn't have shot at a jackrabbit that he didn't intend to eat, and I decided then and there that I wouldn't do that anymore either. I have always appreciated that lesson since then, and have tried to live by that ethic myself. There was a coyote one time that was eyeing my dog pretty closely, and that ethic would have had to bend a little bit if it had ventured within arrow range, but that's another story....

rastaman · February 09, 2023, 10:03:03 AM

i love rabbit! i like mine batter fried and then smothered in gravy and some bisquits on the side. i got hungry looking at yours. On another note, it's good that you have the feelings you do about taking the life of a living animal. You are not alone . i always thank the animal whose life i took and say a prayer of thanks to my God up above.

Duker · February 09, 2023, 05:27:36 PM

Rabbit is some of the best eating around but down here in N.C. we fry everything.

GCook · February 09, 2023, 06:41:51 PM

I feel respect for the creation. But I understand my place in it. I'm a hunter. I'm a killer. I don't eat all I kill. No way I could. But some things, like pigs, have to be controlled beyond what I can eat.
I don't feel bad for killing rats in my garage or coyotes at my ranch.
I made a marginal shot on a doe this last season. Liver and one lung. She was down within a hundred yards or so but it took a few minutes to expire. As I was thanking The Lord for her I said an apology for not making a better shot.
In my defense it would have been better had she stood still.
Now rabbit has a special place in my desirable wild game table fare.

Wannabe1 · February 09, 2023, 07:29:41 PM

Quote from: Duker on February 09, 2023, 05:27:36 PM
Rabbit is some of the best eating around but down here in N.C. we fry everything.

Yep, for me, fried or not at all! Same with my squirrels and frog legs!:thumbsup:

Mr Rover · February 15, 2023, 06:51:21 PM

cotton tail has got to be one of my favorites! Nice shooting and may i add that looks darn tasty!