Rabbit meat is usually served at the holiday table. After all, this type of meat is more expensive than others. Therefore, it is very disappointing when rabbit meat obtained at such a price comes out overdried and tough. Dishes from it cannot be prepared according to the principle of pork or beef. The rabbit is more sinewy and its meat has little fat. This circumstance makes it a dietary product, and it also creates many difficulties for novice cooks.
You should know some secrets of cooking this type of meat. It is best to bake a rabbit in the oven - as a whole carcass or in portioned pieces. This way the meat will retain the most beneficial elements. The aroma and taste of baked rabbit dishes will be unsurpassed. Of course, you can fry the meat until golden brown and then stew it. These dishes are also very tasty. In this article we will tell you how to cook juicy rabbit in the oven. You will find a selection of easy-to-implement recipes below.
Some features of cooking rabbit meat
There are two nuances that can ruin the entire dish. The first is a specific smell. Not everyone likes it, just like the aroma of river fish or lamb. Getting rid of the smell is simple - you need to soak the meat in an acidic environment. This could be a dairy product (kefir, for example), dry wine, or even plain water with vinegar. The soaking procedure will help you not only eliminate unwanted odor, but also remove excess blood, as well as soften the fibers of the meat, which will prevent it from drying out.
If the rabbit is not young, and was not bought at the market, but in a store, it should be kept in an acidic environment for at least 12 hours, or even better, a day. If you also marinate the carcass, then your dish will only benefit from it. Many recipes for rabbit dishes in the oven involve the use of sour cream. This product, as well as basil as a seasoning, are ideal for this type of meat.
Secrets of cooking rabbit
A tasty, appetizing rabbit, the recipe for which can be either the simplest or the most sophisticated, will be an ideal solution for a holiday menu, a weekday dinner or any other meal. To make the dish successful, you need to know some secrets.
- The main condition for obtaining the desired result is high-quality and always fresh (not frozen) young rabbit meat.
- You should not opt for mature carcasses. The meat of such animals is tough and has a characteristic odor, which is more difficult to get rid of.
- To improve the characteristics of rabbit meat, soak it in salted, acidified water (regular or mineral), milk or whey.
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Rabbit in the sleeve
If you are a beginner cook, we recommend this recipe to you. The heat-resistant sleeve provides a 100% guarantee that the dish will not dry out or burn. After all, all the vapors and juice will remain inside this package. Let's look at how to cook a rabbit in the oven in a sleeve. The recipe is ridiculously simple:
- Soak the carcass for 6 to 12 hours.
- Then we marinate it so that the meat is saturated with the ingredients and becomes soft. What options can you offer? French mustard (with whole grains), honey and cream. Pepper, dry herbs and soy sauce. Sour cream with mayonnaise and spices. When you choose the marinade you like, don’t forget about salt. But it should be used in moderation. After all, some marinade ingredients (mayonnaise, soy sauce) are already quite salty.
- After another 8-10 hours we begin cooking. For an average rabbit carcass, take two onions and carrots, as well as several potato tubers. We will peel the vegetables.
- Chop the onion into rings, grate the carrots, and cut the potatoes into cubes.
- Place the rabbit, marinade and vegetables in a sleeve.
- Tie the bag and place it in the heated oven.
- Cooking time depends on the size of the rabbit. The baking process usually takes an hour.
Rabbit in the oven in sour cream sauce
Rabbit in sour cream sauce is considered a classic recipe. Sour cream makes any meat softer and more tender, but it combines amazingly with rabbit meat. Based on the recipe (rabbit in the oven in sour cream), you can prepare many different dishes by adding mushrooms, vegetables, herbs, wine and various seasonings. Rabbit meat in sour cream is cooked not only in the oven, but also on the stove in a saucepan with a thick bottom, but the oven is preferable. The meat turns out to be especially soft, aromatic with a delicious creamy crust.
Recipe ingredients:
- rabbit 1 kg.
- carrots 1 pc.
- onion 2 pcs.
- mushrooms 200 g.
- sour cream 300 ml.
- garlic 2-3 cloves
- hard cheese 100 g.
- vegetable oil for frying
- seasonings (basil, suneli hops, pepper)
- salt
Cooking method:
- Wash the rabbit and blot off excess moisture. Cut into pieces. If you use an axe, be careful that there are no bone fragments left behind. A rabbit's bones are very hard and sharp. Season the meat with pepper.
- While the meat is marinating, cut the onion into half rings, the carrots into strips, and the mushrooms into small cubes or slices. Pour vegetable oil into a frying pan and fry the pieces of meat until golden brown. In another frying pan, fry the onion and carrots until soft. When the onion becomes translucent, add the mushrooms. Fry until the liquid evaporates. Add sour cream, salt, season with spices, squeeze garlic through a press, add grated cheese. Stir the sauce and heat through.
- Place the fried meat on a baking sheet, pour in sour cream sauce. Cover the baking sheet with foil. Bake in the oven for about an hour. 15-20 minutes before cooking, remove the foil to allow the meat to brown.
Serving method : It is best to serve rabbit in sour cream sauce with rice, mashed potatoes or pasta.
How to cook rabbit in sour cream in the oven. Option 1: in foil
Baking in a sleeve is good for everyone, except for one thing: the meat does not form a ruddy, appetizing crust, it looks like boiled. To eliminate this undesirable nuance, we replace the heat-resistant bag with foil. Aluminum will also protect the meat from drying out, like a sleeve, but it can be removed to get a baked crust. Rabbit and sour cream are classics of Slavic cuisine. Cooking:
- Cut the soaked carcass into pieces.
- Rub the meat with salt, crushed garlic, basil and other spices.
- Generously coat the rabbit pieces with sour cream. The fattier this fermented milk product, the more tender the meat will be. But if you are on a diet and carefully count calories, you can replace sour cream with natural yogurt. The meat should spend at least three hours in this marinade.
- How to cook rabbit in sour cream in the oven in foil? Take a sheet and line a baking sheet with it. Place pieces of marinated meat.
- If you wish, you can add chopped vegetables to the rabbit so that the main dish ripens along with the side dish. Cover with a second sheet of foil.
- We pinch the edges so that the juice does not leak out.
- Place in a heated oven.
- Bake for 45 minutes at 220 degrees. Using scissors, open the foil package (be careful, there is hot steam inside!). Place the pan back into the oven for another quarter of an hour.
Rabbit in sour cream on the stove
To follow the recipe you will need:
- rabbit carcass;
- 1 glass of sour cream;
- butter 100 g;
- onions – 2 pcs.;
- 3 cloves of garlic;
- bay leaf – 2 pcs.;
- various peppers, salt, seasonings.
Rabbit in sour cream on the stove
The preparation procedure is extremely simple:
- The carcass is cut into pieces.
- Rinse the meat.
- Dry with paper towels.
- Fry in hot oil, dipping all the pieces in flour.
- Chop the onion and grate the garlic on a fine grater.
- The meat is transferred to a saucepan.
- Simmer the onion for 5 minutes in the same oil where the meat was fried.
- Pour a couple of glasses of water into the stewpan with the rabbit, put the onion in there, and simmer for 40 minutes.
- Open the lid, add sour cream, seasonings and bay leaf to the meat and onions. Simmer for another 10 minutes.
- Then put crushed garlic in a saucepan, cover with a lid and let it “rest” without heating for 15-20 minutes. The meat will be saturated with the aroma of garlic and acquire an incredible taste and aroma.
You can serve buckwheat porridge, mashed potatoes or pasta as a side dish, garnishing the dish with sprigs of herbs.
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Rabbit in French
This type of meat has been very popular in Western Europe since the Middle Ages. France gave us especially many recipes for rabbit dishes cooked in the oven. We will give here just one of them.
Cut the carcass (one to one and a half kilograms) into pieces and place in a deep bowl. Season with salt, a mixture of peppers, thyme, dry basil and 80 milliliters of olive oil. Stir and leave at room temperature. Let's move on to the vegetables now. Peel and cut into small pieces:
- onion,
- white part of the leek,
- carrots,
- celery root.
Algorithm for further actions:
- Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry the rabbit pieces until they are covered with a golden, delicious crust.
- Transfer the meat to a high-sided baking sheet (or baking dish).
- Throw the chopped vegetables into the remaining oil in the frying pan - first celery and carrots, then both types of onions.
- Preheat the oven. Add fried vegetables to the meat.
- Chop 4 bay leaves, pour in an incomplete glass of dry white wine and 800 milliliters of cream with 18 percent fat content.
- Stir and close the pan tightly. We put it in the oven.
- Cook at 160 degrees for one and a half to two hours.
Fenkada
And this is a Maltese recipe. A delicious rabbit baked in the oven will surely please even the most discerning gourmets. The dish is prepared like this:
- The recipe instructs us to divide the carcass into pieces and roll them in a breading of flour, salt and a mixture of peppers.
- Then you should heat a mixture of vegetable and butter in a deep frying pan with a removable handle.
- Fry the rabbit pieces in this fat.
- When the meat is covered on all sides with a golden crust, add the onion, chopped into rings.
- Increase the heat and pour in a glass of dry red wine.
- We wait until two-thirds of the liquid has evaporated.
- Turn on the oven at 170 degrees.
- Add 400 grams of tomatoes in their own juice (or grated fresh tomatoes without skins), a teaspoon of oregano to the frying pan.
- Add salt to the dish and season with spices.
- Place the pan in the oven. We cook for an hour and a half.
- We decorate the fenkada with fresh parsley.
Whole baked rabbit
Are you thinking about how to surprise your guests and what to put as the main dish on the festive table? See if this recipe for whole oven baked rabbit comes in handy. This dish requires a minimum of ingredients, and the result is always great.
- Fill the rabbit with water so that the liquid covers the entire carcass. Add a spoon or two of vinegar. It will soften the fibers and at the same time remove the specific odor.
- After an hour, take it out, rub it with a mixture of peppers, dried basil, salt and olive oil.
- Let the meat marinate for half a day in the refrigerator.
- Line a baking sheet with foil and grease with vegetable oil.
- We place the rabbit on its back, stretching its legs as far as possible.
- Place the pan in the hot oven, first covering the dish with a second sheet of foil.
- After 20 minutes, remove the aluminum, bake for another half hour, periodically watering the carcass.
Oven-baked rabbit with mayonnaise and garlic
To ensure that the meat does not dry out during baking, but turns out juicy and tender, you need to soak it in a fatty marinade. Sour cream or cream is good, but mayonnaise consisting of vegetable oil and eggs is even better. For flavor, we use garlic, which we stuff into the carcass.
- Mix different seasonings in a bowl. It can be black and red pepper, paprika, dry herbs, coriander, or simply “Spices for meat”. Carefully rub this mixture into the rabbit meat.
- Peel eight cloves of garlic and cut into large pieces. We make small cuts in the meat with the tip of a knife. Insert pieces of garlic into them.
- Then generously coat the carcass with mayonnaise, the entire surface, including the inside. Let the rabbit stand for 40 minutes or even an hour. During this time, mayonnaise will saturate the meat fibers and make them more tender.
- Grease a baking tray with vegetable oil. Place the rabbit on its side. Put it in the oven. You will get a juicy and soft rabbit if you periodically water it with the released fat.
- We bake for an hour. During this time, you need to turn the carcass over to the other side.
Rabbit with honey mustard sauce
To make the meat juicy, it should be marinated in a sour-fat environment, as described in the previous recipe (rabbit baked in the oven with mayonnaise and garlic). But you can do it differently:
- Marinate the pieces of meat in a mixture of spices, salt, olive oil and vinegar. Let's leave it like that for half an hour.
- Finely chop three cloves of garlic and two shallots.
- Cut bacon (50 grams) into cubes.
- Melt a spoonful of butter in a frying pan. Fry the pieces of rabbit meat on both sides.
- Transfer the meat to a baking dish. And stir the bacon into the fat where the rabbit was fried.
- When the lard becomes transparent, add the onion and garlic with rosemary needles (1 small sprig).
- Fry for 3 minutes, pour in 100 ml of white wine. When the liquid has evaporated by half, add a tablespoon of honey and two Dijon mustard.
- Salt the dish and season with a mixture of peppers. Boil, pour the sauce into a mold, cover it with foil and bake for an hour and a half.
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Rabbit meat is a dietary product. It contains a lot of protein and a minimum of cholesterol and fat. Rabbit meat is the richest in mineral and vitamin composition, in comparison with other types of meat. Thanks to this, it is a common product in the diet of healthy children and those who are forced to adhere to a dietary diet.
The basis of all rabbit recipes for children is meat, and therefore it is important to properly process it before cooking. Since the rabbit is not cooked whole, its carcass should be cut up and washed well. Sometimes rabbit meat can have a specific smell. In order to remove it and make the meat even softer, it should be marinated or soaked in water for 1 to 3 hours.
Meat can be stewed, fried, baked in the oven or over an open fire. The average cooking time for rabbit meat is about 30 – 35 minutes. There is no need to keep the meat longer than this time, as it becomes tough.
- rabbit meat - the back of the carcass;
- potatoes – 8 pcs.;
- rice – 50 g;
- carrots - 1 pc.;
- onion – 1 pc.;
- salt, butter and herbs.
To prepare rabbit soup for a child, you need to wash the back of the rabbit carcass and place it in a saucepan with water on the fire. Cook the meat for about 40 minutes. After this, you need to take it out and cut it into small pieces. Return the boneless meat to the pan, followed by the potatoes, cut into strips.
When the water boils again, add the washed rice to the pan. 10 minutes before the end of cooking, add carrots and onions sautéed in oil to the soup and salt to taste.
Rabbit puree soup for small children is easy to prepare. Place the rabbit meat, peeled from the film, into a pan with water and cook until the meat is cooked. After the meat is cooked, we put it and the resulting broth into a blender. If desired, five minutes after cooking, you can add a little mashed potato to the resulting meat puree soup. It is better to salt the puree soup before serving.
- rabbit meat – 1 kg;
- milk – 50 ml;
- lard – 100 g;
- egg – 1 pc.;
- vegetable or butter - 1 tbsp. spoon;
- bread - 1 piece;
- bread crumbs, salt, pepper.
To prepare rabbit cutlets for children, separate the meat from the bones and pass it through a meat grinder. Following the meat, we pass the bacon and bread, previously soaked in milk, through a meat grinder.
Beat the egg into the resulting minced meat and add salt and pepper to taste. We form cutlets from the prepared minced meat and then roll them in breadcrumbs.
Place the formed cutlets in a hot frying pan with oil. They need to be fried on both sides until fully cooked. You can serve these cutlets with mashed potatoes or porridge.
- rabbit meat - half a carcass;
- onion – 1 pc.;
- carrots – 1 pc.;
- sour cream – 500g;
- garlic – 1 clove;
- vegetable oil, salt, vinegar.
To prepare rabbit stewed in sour cream for a child, you need to soak the rabbit for 3 hours in cold water diluted with vinegar. After this, coat the meat with salt and squeezed garlic. Leave for another 1 hour.
In a hot frying pan and
Fry the rabbit meat on both sides over high heat until the crust sets. Then we put the meat into the pan. In the frying pan where the rabbit was fried, sauté the onions and carrots. Place them in a pan on top of the meat and pour sour cream on top. Cover the pan with a lid and place on the stove. After the contents of the pan boil, turn the heat to low and simmer the rabbit for 35 minutes.
- rabbit liver – 300g;
- egg – 2 pcs.;
- onions – 2 pcs.;
- flour – 1 tbsp. spoon;
- breadcrumbs;
- vegetable oil;
- salt, pepper, herbs.
To prepare rabbit liver cutlets for a child, the liver itself must be soaked in milk, having previously been cleared of the film.
We pass the prepared liver and peeled onions through a meat grinder. Add chopped herbs, eggs, salt and pepper to the resulting mixture, and then mix. If the minced meat turns out liquid, add a little flour.
Place the cutlets with a spoon into a hot frying pan with oil heated on it. The cutlets are fried on both sides for two minutes. They should be served with a side dish.
Rabbit with mushrooms
It's easy to prepare, but it turns out incredibly tasty! Algorithm:
- Divide the carcass into portions. As with many other oven-baked rabbit recipes, the meat should first be marinated.
- Peel and finely chop the garlic (4 cloves) (or put it through a press). Rub the pieces of meat.
- Place the rabbit in a deep bowl and pour in 150-200 milliliters of soy sauce. Leave to marinate for half an hour.
- We clean 400 grams of champignons and cut them coarsely. Fry the mushrooms in vegetable oil until the juice released by them evaporates.
- We clean three onions and a carrot and chop them into half rings. Add vegetables to the pan with the mushrooms.
- Stirring occasionally, fry until the onion becomes soft and golden.
- In another frying pan in well-heated vegetable oil, fry the rabbit pieces until golden brown.
- Place a third of the vegetables in a baking dish or baking sheet.
- We place pieces of rabbit on this “pillow”.
- Cover with a “blanket” of remaining vegetables.
- Salt, pepper, pour in a little more than half a glass of water.
- Wrap the baking sheet very tightly in foil so that the steam from the rabbit remains inside the bag.
- Place in an oven preheated to 190 degrees. We bake for about an hour.
Cooking in pots
Recipes allow you to prepare oven-baked rabbit not only on a baking sheet or in a sleeve. There are many dishes in pots. Then the rabbit juice does not evaporate, and the meat turns out juicy.
Preparation:
- Cut the carcass into small pieces, and 8 peeled potatoes into small bars.
- Fry the rabbit until crusty in a frying pan.
- Add two onions, chopped into half rings.
- Salt and sprinkle with hop-suneli seasoning.
- Place the rabbit in pots. Add a spoonful of ketchup on top.
- Mix the potatoes with salt and spices and add them to the pots.
- Fill each container halfway with warm water.
- Add a clove of garlic and a piece of butter.
- Cover the pots. Bake for an hour at 200 degrees.
Rabbit baked in the oven in its own juice
For those who have never encountered cooking rabbit meat before, we advise you to try this simple recipe. A rabbit baked in the oven in a jar is stewed in its own juices without adding fat, without pre-frying, without preparing complex marinades and sauces, but it turns out incredibly tasty and healthy. If only there was a rabbit! In order not to make a mistake with your choice and not buy some other animal instead of a rabbit, purchase rabbit meat in the store. If you buy a rabbit at the market, its hind legs should not be cut off.
Recipe ingredients:
- rabbit carcass 1 pc.
- onions 2 pcs.
- carrots 1 pc.
- rosemary several sprigs
- ground pepper
- Bay leaf
- salt
Cooking method:
- Roast the rabbit carcass before cooking to remove lint and hair. Wash the carcass, dry it, cut into pieces at the joints. Cut the onion and carrots into small cubes.
- Prepare the marinade for the rabbit. Place pieces of rabbit meat in a saucepan, sprinkling them with onions, carrots, salt and spices. If fresh rosemary is not available, replace it with 1 teaspoon dried. Stir the meat until it is evenly coated with salt and spices. Leave to marinate for 2 hours. It is better to marinate the meat the night before.
- Place the marinated meat in a clean three-liter jar. Cover it tightly with foil to prevent steam from escaping from the jar during cooking. Place in a cold oven. Bake for about 2 hours at 180°C. The cooking time can vary between 1.5-2 hours. The meat and juice at the bottom of the jar should not burn. As soon as the pieces begin to brown, the rabbit can be removed.
- Transfer the meat to a platter. Serve with any side dish.
- Tip : Experienced chefs advise before cooking to soak the rabbit meat in the marinade or in regular cold water for 6-8 hours. You can add lemon juice, wine, vinegar to the water. This makes the meat exceptionally tender. If you soak your rabbit in plain water, change it every 3 hours.
Adjika marinade
Basically, recipes for oven-baked rabbit dishes suggest soaking the carcass or portioned pieces in sour cream, mayonnaise or wine. And we will cook meat with Caucasian flavor, with adjika!
The recipe is simple:
- Soak the rabbit in water with vinegar (2 tablespoons per liter) for 20 minutes.
- Cut the carcass and place the pieces in the mold.
- Add pepper, salt, two tablespoons of vegetable oil and five adjika to taste. Mix.
- Seal the pan tightly with foil.
- Bake for about an hour at 200 degrees.
How to cook a rabbit in the oven - recommendations
Before preparing rabbit dishes in the oven, it is recommended to soak or marinate the meat. This simple procedure will enrich the taste of rabbit meat and make the meat more tender and juicy.
There are many recipes for marinades, everyone can choose the composition to their taste. The most popular marinade is a mixture of wine vinegar and spices. Usually vinegar is diluted with water or cold water is slightly acidified with vinegar.
The classic marinade for rabbit is a mixture of olive oil and garlic (crushed or passed through a press). For such a marinade you will need a large amount of garlic (at least 2 heads per carcass), you can also add various herbs to the marinade. The rabbit is coated with marinade and placed in a cool place for 2-3 hours. After this time, you can start cooking the rabbit in the oven.
White wine is considered an excellent marinade for rabbit meat. It softens the meat well, makes it more flavorful and removes the specific smell. Some French recipes suggest marinating rabbit in red wine.