Rabbit hopping onto U.S. menus
On menus across the country, rabbit dishes are multiplying like — do I have to say it?
All manner of restaurants are embracing the bunny. Food & Wine restaurant editor Kate N. Krader heralded rabbit as "the great new sustainable meat" for 2013.
There are several reasons for this growing popularity. Rabbit meat is mild in flavor and lower in fat and cholesterol than beef, lamb, pork or chicken. It's a versatile protein, chefs like to work with it, and customer squeamishness (that is, the oh-my-God-you-killed-Thumper factor) has steadily declined over the years.
PHIL VETTEL
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"There was a time when customers were afraid," says Matthew Accarrino, executive chef of SPQR restaurant in San Francisco, "but now it's become the other white meat. From a quality standpoint, everything I buy, I buy whole. A whole rabbit is just a few pounds; it's not like buying a 200-pound pig to get a whole animal. That makes it very manageable for a chef and a home cook."
Accarrino's go-to rabbit dish is a prosciutto-wrapped rabbit roulade, served with braised rabbit shoulder and drumsticks; that dish, and three other rabbit recipes, are included in his "SPQR: Modern Italian Food and Wine" cookbook.
The easy availability of rabbit meat is another plus for chefs. A lot of frozen rabbit meat comes from China, but whole rabbits, sourced from local farms, aren't difficult to find.
"Rabbits are relatively easy to raise, especially in the city," says Kevin Sousa, chef and owner of Salt of the Earth in Pittsburgh. "They require a small footprint, eat hay and vegetable scraps, and they're quiet. And they're really sustainable."
The "sustainable" aspect refers to rabbits' well-known reproductive prowess. A female rabbit has a nine-month breeding season, and gestation is only four weeks. Even at the low end of litter size (typically between four and 12 kits per litter), a doe can produce a lot of rabbits in a year — and before that year is out, some of those offspring will reach breeding age (6 months) themselves.
So, rabbits are highly sustainable and nutritious. What are they like to work with? They're a little tricky, it turns out, thanks to a phalanx of tiny bones. You may have seen pictures of rack of rabbit, a dish popularized by Thomas Keller of French Laundry; it's beautiful to look at, but cleaning all those miniature rib bones takes a lot of work.
"Deboning, or breaking down, a raw rabbit can be a bit difficult, as it has super-tiny bones," says Paula DaSilva, executive chef of 1500 Degrees in Miami Beach. "It also makes a great terrine or spread, but those techniques have a higher degree of difficulty."
"In terms of prep, there is some skill involved; you kind of have to know what you're doing," says Sarah Stegner, chef and partner of Prairie Grass Cafe in Northbrook. "But that's what makes it fun." Stegner will feature rabbit saddle with mustard sauce and braised leg with sauteed spinach as part of a game dinner Feb. 21 but says rabbit also shows up other times of the year.