Rabbit Spaghetti Recipe
My husband and I haven't always enjoyed the same type of foods. He grew up around Jody's, a restaurant that built its reputation on fresh-made daily southern favorites. Jody was his grandfather, his idol, and made the best chicken fried steak in town. Our families were friends and Jody's Restaurant was always my favorite "treat" when we decided to eat some good ol' southern food. However, I grew up eating pretty healthy, balanced meals - lots of veggies, grilled meat, no sodas, one scoop of ice cream for dessert, and very rarely ate fried food. Regardless of our upbringing, there's one thing we've always had in common: chicken spaghetti. I knew I loved Braxton when he told me it was his favorite meal. My momma can cook a mean chicken spaghetti from scratch and I still request it for my birthday every year.
This past weekend, we went to stay with a follower that reached out to us via Instagram and invited us to his lease in West Texas. Chase Cundiff, who we now consider a friend, took us hunting for hogs and quail, with a little rabbit hunting in between. By the end of the hunt, we totaled 1 hog, 19 quail, and 8 rabbits. I brought 5 of the rabbits home and decided to get creative for Valentine's Day. Why not make our favorite meal, but substitute the store bought chicken with some fresh, wild, organic meat? It sounded like a no brainer, until I realized how hard it would be to match the moist, flavorful rotisserie chicken that I always bought at the grocery store. I know, I feel like I'm confessing a sin. I never even boiled my own chicken, so how the heck was I going to make rabbit taste good?
I immediately called Jeremiah Doughty (www.fromfieldtoplate.com), the best wild game chef out of California, and he solved all my problems like big brothers do. He is 100% the reason this rabbit turned out so wonderful, and the steps below are straight from his text messages. He gave me permission to share this simple, effective mixture in hopes of helping another fellow hunter! Just a heads up, 2.5-3 cottontail rabbits is plenty for one serving. With it being my first time, I just went ahead and cooked all of them. You can double the recipe with 5 rabbits, OR make something else with the leftovers. I plan to try rabbit enchiladas next!
1. Place rabbits in brine: 1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup sugar, 4 cloves garlic minced, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup Worcestershire, 1/3 onion slices, 2 tablespoons pepper +any other stuff you'd like. Cover with water and brine for 12 hours in fridge.
2. Remove rabbits from brine, rinse off and put in crockpot. Cover in chicken stock, garlic, onion, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1 tablespoon paprika, pepper, 2 bay leaves and any herbs you'd like (Rosemary, thyme, basil, etc.)
I chose to add Basil because it's all I had in addition to the main ingredients. Why not! Keep an eye out for BBs once you remove the meat; brine will often times cause the BBs to come to the surface of the meat. I removed several from mine. Disregard if you weren't using a shotgun for a weapon.
3. Cook for 8-10 hours on low or 6-8 on high, or until rabbits fall off the bones.
It's always my opinion that low and slow is better, which is what I chose to do; however, I'm sure cooking on high is great too!
4. Pull meat off rabbits and taste. If you need to season do so at this time when it's still hot.
Braxton and I used a large pan to spread the meat out while sifting through. It took us approximately 25 minutes to get through all 5 rabbits - USE YOUR FINGERS! Some of the bones are TINY and you need to feel for them.
5. Turn up the music and dance your heart away.
6. Kiss Braxton for me.
^^^YES, JEREMIAH REALLY SAID THAT!! Such brotherly love those two have. As long as you follow these instructions, you will fall in love with rabbit. And my husband. Ha!
Once you've prepared the rabbit, you're ready to make the spaghetti! My favorite recipe (next to my momma's, which I don't personally have yet), is the Pioneer Woman - Ree Drummond's recipe which you can find here. I own 3 of her cookbooks and they're all wonderful, but I can't say this enough - the most important thing is how you handle the wild game meat if you plan to substitute in recipes like hers. Jeremiah is a wonderful reference and is extremely helpful if you can't find what you're looking for on his site. All I can say is that I will be collecting rabbit during the colder months from now on. I never knew what I was missing!
