Fried chicken is delicious. Seriously, can you name anyone who doesn’t like fried chicken? Its a comfort food that is great hot or cold. Put it with a side of mashed potatoes and corn and you’ve really got something. But have you ever tried fried rabbit?
Fried rabbit is truly delightful! You can go ahead and cut up the whole rabbit into pieces like you do a chicken, or what we do is just take the front and back legs off of multiple rabbits and cook them up together.
On butchering day, the rabbits either get used right away or frozen. We process them to where we package some of the legs together and then just freeze the remaining rabbit without its legs. The legs are the perfect portion size and doing it this way requires less work than if you were to cut up the whole rabbit into “fryable” sized pieces.
After thawing the meat and letting it rest in a marinade of coke, Worcestershire sauce and garlic for a few hours, batter coat the meat one piece at a time in a flour mixture. We use flour mixed with seasoned salt and garlic salt. Once thoroughly coated, we place it into the fryer.
Our current fryer is an old pot on the stove. You can use any oil or lard you choose. Heat up the oil prior to coating the rabbit and have it nice and hot ready to fry. Place the rabbit legs a few at a time into the fryer and keep an eye on them that they don’t burn. If the oil seems too hot, turn it down. You don’t want your meat burning on the outside but still under-cooked inside.
Cook on each side, turning once. When you pull it out be sure to test a piece to be sure the inside is done. When its ready and your kitchen smells amazing, pull the meat out of the fryer and let it cool until it is at a consumable temperature. Once the meat has cooled enough that the rabbit can be handled with bare hands, devour that deliciousness, but savor each bite!
