Cottontail backstrap any suggestions?

After I am through thawing and processing a backyard bunnie I will have a very nice backstrap any interesting suggestions?

Geo, it has been a very long time, but I remember as a kid, my mom would brown rabbit (backstrap and leg). Then she would smother them in a fine gravy made simply with covering them in water and layering sliced onion over them and letting them cook until falling off the bone tender. The gravy was ladled over mashed potatoes and YUM! Tell us what you do?

Just went with old fashioned slow pan frying...egg, seasoned flour and a few bread crumbs. As an old friend once told me when we ate bunnie... "It was good but it wasn't pan fried!"

The problem with bunny meat is that it's so lean that it dries out easily. Taking Chef Carey's view of the world, bunny is best cooked by braising to retain its moisture. I am partial to that old French bistrot standard, rabbit in mustard sauce (I am sure that you can find many recipes for it should you be so interested) in which the meat is cooked by slowly simmering it in wine.

Mark Lipton

The problem with bunny meat is that it's so lean that it dries out easily. Taking Chef Carey's view of the world, bunny is best cooked by braising to retain its moisture. I am partial to that old French bistrot standard, rabbit in mustard sauce (I am sure that you can find many recipes for it should you be so interested) in which the meat is cooked by slowly simmering it in wine.

Mark Lipton

That old French standard treatment is very good. Another one (Burgundian) is rabbit tenderloin en croute with a thin line of pate de foie gras inside the croute before baking.

And Biba Caggiano, in her Sacramento restaurant, once cooked up some of the best wabbit I ever had, small nuggets baked in a flaky pastry.

Mark, braising is exactly what my Mom did when she browned the bunny meat. She floured it and then browned with just enough lard, then when the meat was browned she sliced onion over the top, and covered it with water (aka smothered it). The oil, flour, and water made a great gravy for the mashers, and the meat was falling off the bone tender...and moist too if that need be reported.

Mark, braising is exactly what my Mom did when she browned the bunny meat. She floured it and then browned with just enough lard, then when the meat was browned she sliced onion over the top, and covered it with water (aka smothered it). The oil, flour, and water made a great gravy for the mashers, and the meat was falling off the bone tender...and moist too if that need be reported.

Yup, that sounds like the basic plan, Bob. Replace that water with white wine and the flour with Dijon mustard mixed with thyme leaves et voila!

Mark Lipton

This makes me hungry for cottontail again. I'll have to go check the traps.

Yup, that sounds like the basic plan, Bob. Replace that water with white wine and the flour with Dijon mustard mixed with thyme leaves et voila!

Mark Lipton

IN my house that would work well, but in my Moms house less so. First she was not a wineaux, nor was she aware of dijon mustard! I have posted in the forum on my Mom several times and she was a great cook IMO, just a simple country cook though.

What Mark said. I'm just starting to see spring cottontails and maybe this is the time to harvest a few. I do rather enjoy seeing them jump 2 feet straight up, from a standing start. It does make them a rather more difficult target though.