Monday, June 13, 2011

Charlie Two Crows asked for Hasenfeffer (sour Rabbit Stew Recipe)

Here you go Charlie.

Hasenfeffer
Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups red wine vinegar
3 cups water
1 1/2 tablespoons white sugar
8 whole cloves
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
5 stalks celery, chopped
1 lemon, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon pickling spice
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 (2 1/2 pound) rabbit, cleaned and cut into pieces
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Directions:
1.In a large pot, combine the water, white sugar, whole cloves, onion, celery, lemon, cinnamon, ground cloves, salt, pickling spice and black pepper. Bring to a boil, then turn off and allow to cool. Place the rabbit pieces into the mixture to marinate. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
2.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spread flour out onto a parchment or aluminum foil lined baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the flour is a light brown color.
3.Remove the rabbit from the marinade and pat dry. Strain the marinade, and discard the solids. Reserve the liquid for later.
4.Heat the oil in a deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium heat. Coat the chicken with the toasted flour. Place into the hot oil, and cook until browned on both sides. Remove from the pan, and set aside. If there is oil left in the pan, sprinkle enough of the toasted flour over it to absorb the liquid.
5.In a jar with a lid, mix 1/2 cup of the marinade with 1/4 cup of the remaining toasted flour. Close the lid, and shake vigorously until well blended with no lumps. Heat the pan with the rabbit drippings over low heat. Gradually stir in the marinade mixture, stirring constantly until slightly thickened.
6.Return the rabbit pieces to the pan. Cover and simmer over low heat for 1 hour, or until the meat is falling off of the bones. You may remove the bones prior to serving if desired.

Charlie
That sounds a little complicated for camping. What you might want to do if you want a delicious camp rabbit, is use the following recipe:

First take a 357 magnum pistol, strap it to your hip, set a 30-06 rifle within arms reach, because every bear within 60 miles will head your way when the rabbit starts cooking.

Kill a rabbit, skin and dress it, soak it in the creek to cool it. When it's cool, after about an hour, pat it dry. Mix up 2 cups of sautern wine, the juice of one lemon, and a half cup of vegetable oil. Clean about five cloves of garlic, slice about 1/8 inch thick throw in the mix, add a little salt @1 tsp, add 1/4 tsp pepper. Put all the ingredients in a large zip lock bag. Keep it as cool as you can, or put everything back in the creek. A little before dinner time. Open the zip-lock, pour the juice off the rabbit into a pot. Place the pot over the fire and simmer until the garlic is tender, add a half cube of butter to the mixture and return to a simmer. Place your rabbit on an open grill over the fire, or put it on a spit. Turn the rabbit often and baste it often with the butter wine sauce. Use Kosher salt, pepper, and garlic powder to season while basting often and cooking. Cook slowly until very well done.

Look around for bears, then have dinner. Use the little bits of garlic in the wine sauce for snacks. If there is any Sautern wine left in the bottle, drink that too.

This recipe also works good for Quail, Chicken, and Grey Squirrel. Another good tip is, this recipe works good for hunting bears, they come to you and you don't have to fool around with those darn yodeling hound dogs.

Lepus Californicus, (California Jack Rabbit, or Black-Tailed Rabbit)
(Bunnius Pissedofficus?)



  
 
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Now that's a Jackrabbit

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

The ones we git near the krick,have antlers???

Ernie Branscomb said...

Deer doesn't make good camp meat. You have to age it to get rid of the wild flavor and make it tender. Unless you shoot a fawn, and I don't like shooting fawns. I would if I was starving, but I haven't been that hungry lately.

Ben said...

You will have to shoot the rabbit... the last one I saw in the store (Eureka Natural Foods) cost $30...!

Fred Mangels said...

That doesn't look like a jackrabbit to me. Not skinny enough. Saw lots of them when I lived in SoCal.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Fred
I agree, but I got the picture from Google Images and I couldn't resist the disgusted look on it's face.

Jack rabbits have a tendency to be long and skinny.

Charlie two crows said...

The jacks we kill and eat weigh 8-9 pounds and have ears a foot long. Most people don't eat them. You have to wear gloves to clean them. With the price of food I can't see letting 8 pounds of meat walk away. Ernie, I thought all the bears ate at the Transfer stations. Thanks for the recipes did you get them from your Mom?

Ernie Branscomb said...

Some interesting Jackrabbit facts:
-Jackrabbits hide in the underbrush in the afternoons and come out to eat at night and early morning.
-Fifteen Jackrabbits can eat as much as one cow.
-As with all hares, blacktails rely on speed and camouflage, along with the characteristic "freeze" behavior, for their defense. When flushed from cover, a blacktail can spring 20 feet at a bound and reach top speeds of 30-35 mph over a zigzag course.
-And what conversation about Jackrabbits would be complete with out the obligatory “Jackrabbits are not rabbits at all, they are Hares. Hares are born with fur and rabbits are born naked”

Ernie Branscomb said...

Charlie
The Hasenfeffer recipe came from the internet.
The other recipe is an old family recipe, and has been used almost exclusively when cooking jackrabbits and chicken.

Jon said...

Looks to be a Snowshoe in the first picture. Hind foot shows colour. Guard hairs on body too long for Old Jack.

Anonymous said...

Ernie,about your second post after mine. I was making a joke about it being a Jackalope!!!

Ernie Branscomb said...

Well anon, the joke's on you. We only have Jackeer here. They have pointy horns that branch out like a tree, Jackalopes have those Montana horns.

Johnathan Wilson said...

I'll try this out sometime, thanks for the recipe!

By the way, im still waiting for Terry and Lisa to send me those pictures you requested, they are having health problems with their kids so they don't have much time.

Anonymous said...

I saw rabbits for sale at Ray's in Garberville today, $8.00 to $10.00 each, I didn't check the per lb. price. First time I've seen any in a market for years.---Elsie---

Anonymous said...

When I lived in Alaska I was walking down the isle in the local grocery when this woman grabbed my arm and said "look, a whole chicken in a can." I haven't seen that since back in the 50's.
Next time I bet some woman grabs my are in a grocery store she will say
"look, a jack rabbit in a can."

Oregon

Needs Therapy said...

Back in the day when I was young and could spell sophistification, I took a cheerleader out for a fancy dinner. I asked her if she would like to try a little hassenfeffer, and she said yes, and didn't even slap me.
Now it was our second date, the first one was so much fun frolicking* in Lake Erie, and riding home with her head on my shoulder, she was real cuddly.
I wanted to ask her out right away but my father insisted that I go to some dumb month long summer camp that he had attended growing up. It was to instill "character". Hah! Hated the endeavor, and it broke my heart a little as I was just getting something going with the cheerleader.
Upon my return from camp I quickly asked her out, but something had changed. As we chewed our hassenfeffer silently I knew something was different, and finally she told me she was going back to her previous football player boyfriend. Ugh. I remember thinking I would go for a big goodbye kiss at least, but after dawdling in the car, just when we got to her door, on came the light and her mother opened the door. The cheerleader got a peck on the lips, and I left, slightly crushed.
Within a year she did the "bunnyhop" and got preggers by her football dude, something I never would have done, because I had gotten "character" instilled.

To this day, when I hear the word Hasenfeffer, I sniffle inwardly a little.