Rascally Rabbit

What's more fun than Hops and Chops? H & C with guest contributors!!! I can hardly contain my excitement. The truth is, sometimes I bore myself, and probably you too, so I'd like to introduce you to my sister. She lives in the Czech Republic with her husband (pictured at the top of my Blog as the "Lord of Pilsner"). She has been known to do all sorts of cool things, such as: speak fluent czech, raise her own sheep for meat, make her own soap from scratch, cure her own lamb sausages, and stand up to my merciless teasing. Basically, she's everything a sister should be. So feast your eyes on her latest post! PETA Members Be Forewarned: the following photo is not for sissies.

"Rascally Rabbit" posted by My Sister, Lady Pilsner

My sister, Ms. Chops, invited me to write a bit for Hops and Chops. And, by chance, it seems that I encountered some meat she hasn't yet featured in my "catch" of the morning – a freshly skinned rabbit from my egg lady. To give a little background, I live in a small village in the Czech Republic where small scale farmers still exist. Though, who knows how long this will last, given all sorts of new EU regulations. Any number of people in my village have chickens, but it took a while to find someone who would sell me a reasonable amount of eggs even throughout the winter when eggs are scarce. Hence, my egg lady, who offhandedly offered me a fresh rabbit this morning! We've cooked rabbits before, but don't have a reliable source, so needless to say, it was a welcomed treat.
My husband and I have actually have had a bit of a saga where cooking rabbit is concerned. Our first try was dry, and managed to have patches on it that tasted like turpentine! The only thing I can think of to blame for this was the Czech powdered rosemary. Because rabbit doesn't have much fat and tends to be dry, I've tried brining it. This definitely helps, and we've had some tasty rabbits, but I think I can finally say today's rabbit was a tender, juicy, and flavorful success! In the Hops and Chops tradition: I can't necessarily write an exact recipe, but I brined the rabbit for most of the day in a roughly 16:1 water to salt mixture (as pictured above), cut it into pieces, browned them and then braised the pieces in a covered pan with water, crushed garlic cloves, pepper and juniper berries. Sue seemed to think that an hour sounded like a lot, but I think the rabbit was in there for more than an hour and a half. I added some cream and flour to the juices and managed to satisfy my Czech husband's never-ending and very Czech obsession with sauce (it has something to do with their dumplings, I think.) Anyway, I'm sure the dumplings will have an entry of their own sometime...