How To Properly Cut A Rabbit Carcass At Home + Video

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

How to properly cut a rabbit carcass into portions in a few minutes

How often does rabbit meat appear on your table? Most likely less often than it should. After all, rabbit meat is a very useful product recommended by nutritionists for inclusion in the diet of not only adults, but also children from an early age. However, housewives most often refuse this delicacy due to ignorance of how to cut the carcass. Believe me, this is not a problem at all, a rabbit carcass can be divided into portions in less than 10 minutes.

Content

• 1 Features of rabbit meat

  1.1 Nutritional table for 100 g rabbit meat

• 2 Nuances of cutting a rabbit into portions
• 3 Easy way: the carcass is completely ready for cutting
• 4 How to cut a whole, un-gutted carcass at home
• 5 Video: how to properly cut a rabbit carcass and cook it deliciously

Features of rabbit meat

As you know, a rabbit is not only valuable fur, but also 3-4 kg of dietary, easily digestible meat. And no matter how much we love these fluffy big-eyed animals, from time to time we have to eat them. For example, for disorders and diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, overweight, problems of the cardiovascular system and food allergies, doctors strongly recommend eating rabbit meat instead of pork, beef and even chicken.

Rabbit meat is lighter and healthier than pork, beef, and even chicken

Rabbit meat is lean and low in calories - only 156 kcal per 100 g. In addition, it contains complete protein, vitamins, amino acids and minerals.

Nutritional table for 100 g rabbit meat

Proteins, g	Fat, g	Carbohydrates, g	Ash, g	Water, g
21.5	eleven	-	1,2	66.5

Live rabbits can gain from 4 to 12 kg by adulthood - it all depends on the breed. But you need to remember: a considerable part of this mass is that which is unsuitable for food. If we are talking about cutting a rabbit for cooking any dishes, then you can safely take away:

• head;
• the ends of the paws;
• skin;
• insides.

As a result, only half of the weight will remain in the refreshed and gutted carcass. That is, if a live rabbit weighed 6 kg, then you can only count on 3–3.5 kg of meat with bones.

But from what is left, you can cook any first and second meat dishes. It is customary to boil rabbit meat, fry, stew, bake, dry, dry. It should be remembered that different parts of the carcass are not equivalent in their culinary properties. That is, for some dishes it is better to use certain pieces. For example, meat from the hind legs, fillet and back part is better to stew, bake, grill, fry, make a shish kebab or aspic. And from the ribs, forepaws, coccygeal and neck parts, you can make soup, pilaf, roast or stew with vegetables.

You can cook any dish from rabbit meat - from stews to kebabs

If you will be butchering a freshly slaughtered rabbit, remember that it is strongly not recommended to freeze pieces of raw rabbit meat right away. Leave them in a cool, dry place for 12 hours, such as a basement or refrigerator. During this time, the meat "matures", this process will significantly improve its taste.

The nuances of cutting a rabbit into portions

In fact, cutting a rabbit is not much more complicated than similar manipulations with a chicken carcass. As in any business, the main thing here is to start, to understand the scheme of actions, and then everything will go like clockwork.

So, before you get started, stock up on:

• a large cutting board;
• a sharp kitchen knife;
• kitchen scissors for cutting;

• gloves.

  

  You will need a handy cutting board, a sharp knife and poultry scissors

The easy way: the carcass is completely ready for cutting

If you have a frozen rabbit carcass, be sure to defrost it completely. To speed things up, place the rabbit in a bowl of cold water and vinegar (2-3 tablespoons of vinegar to 3 liters of water).

Cutting procedure:

1. First, remove all entrails from the carcass and try to completely trim the fat, if any. Then you can fry something on it, for example, potatoes or scrambled eggs - it turns out very tasty!

   

   Remove the entrails from the carcass and trim the fat

2. Place the bird back up on a cutting board. Spread your paws to the sides - this will make it easier for you to work. Separate the back of the carcass by first cutting the meat to the bone with a knife, and then biting the bone with cutting scissors.

   

   Separate the back from the carcass with a knife and scissors

3. Cut off the hind legs at the joints.

   

   Separate the hind legs from the carcass

4. If you got a large rabbit, divide each leg by joint into 2 parts. Then it will be easier to cook them.

   

   Divide each large paw into 2 parts

5. So, just from the back have you already received 3 or 5 separate portions of meat.

   

   The back of a large rabbit will make 5 pieces of meat

6. Now cut off the front legs using a sharp kitchen knife.

   

   Cut off the front legs with a knife

7. If necessary or desired, divide the front legs also into 2 parts.

   

   Front feet can also be cut into 2 pieces

8. You are left with a torso with a rib cage. Separate the back from the chest. Make transverse cuts along the flesh on the back, thus marking the portioned pieces.

   

   Make transverse cuts along the body with a knife, marking the pieces

9. Along these incisions, divide the back into parts, cutting the bones of the spine with scissors.

   

   Divide the back into pieces along the cuts

10. If you haven't removed your lungs right away from your chest, remove them now. Using scissors, carefully divide the breastbone into pieces.

    

    Cut the brisket into portions using scissors

11. You can have 3-4 brisket servings, depending on how big the carcass was.

    

    The sternum can be divided into 3-4 pieces

12. Well, you did it! Place the pieces of rabbit meat in a bowl and refrigerate, or start preparing your chosen dish right away.

    

    From the resulting pieces of rabbit meat, you can immediately cook something

How to cut up a whole, gutted carcass at home

It's good if you have in your hands a carcass from a store or from the market, as in the first case: butchering will not take much time and effort. But what if you were given a whole rabbit, from which only the skin was removed, and everything else is in place? We'll have to try, forgetting about disgust and pity for animals. It will be necessary to cut off the head and tear off the ends of the legs with a tail. Fortunately, this is not so difficult and will not take much time.

From a peeled carcass, you need to cut off the head, tail and tips of the paws yourself

Procedure:

1. First, break the paws in the ankle area to remove the areas where the skin remains.

   

   Break your paws in the ankle area

2. Then cut the muscles and tendons with a sharp knife to completely separate the tips of the paws.

   

   Cut the muscles and tendons to completely separate the lower legs

3. Cut off the head from the carcass at the first vertebra in the neck.

   

   Separate the head from the carcass

4. If the tail was not removed along with the skin, tear it off in one sharp motion.

   

   Remove tail if necessary

5. Turn the carcass upside down. You will see a white line along the middle of the abdomen, along which you need to make an incision with a knife all the way to the sternum.

   

   Make an incision along the white line along the peritoneum

6. Carefully detach the internal organs from the muscle tissue and remove them from the carcass. At the same time, make sure that the urinary and gall bladders are not damaged, otherwise what they contain will get on the meat, and the carcass will become unusable.

   

   Carefully remove the insides without damaging the bladder and gallbladder

7. Take out the liver. Pay attention to its color: the deep red tint of the liver indicates the health of the animal. Spots on the surface of an organ or its strange appearance indicate previous diseases. Better to refuse such a rabbit.

   

   If the liver is deep red, it is read, the rabbit was healthy and its meat is of high quality

8. Fat and kidneys can be left inside the abdominal cavity, while the lungs and heart are best retrieved. Now clean the gutted carcass of any dirt and wash.

   

   Gutted and washed carcass can be cut into portions

9. First, trim the fattest side pieces.

   

   Cut off the sirloin pieces from the abdomen and sides

10. Cut off the front legs. This is not difficult to do, since they are not attached to the body by bones. Cut off the boneless layer of pulp from the belly.

    

    Cut off the front legs

11. Turn the carcass over, cut the meat on the back along the ridge from the pelvis to the neck. Cut the loin into pieces (their number will depend on the size of the carcass). You don't have to remove the fillet from the bones if you want the pieces to be fatter.
12. It's time to grab your hind legs. Stick the knife from below in a direction along the spine and cut, separating the leg at the joint. Cut large paws into 2 parts at the "knee".
13. When all paws are separated, trim the tendons in the spine, press back lightly and break the spine in the lower back. Separate the muscle tissue and tendons that support the vertebrae, thereby separating the bottom of the carcass.

14. Use kitchen scissors to cut off the ribs, keeping the lines along the spine.

    

    Separate the ribs, they can be useful except for the broth

15. After that, divide the backrest into 3-4 parts in the same way as above.

    

    Divide the back into 3-4 parts

16. You will have a cut carcass in the form of 4 legs, 3 backs and 2 pieces of tenderloin meat from the belly.

    

    The final cut rabbit carcass can produce 8 to 13 portions

Video: how to properly cut a rabbit carcass and cook it deliciously

We hope that our article will help you learn how to properly and quickly butcher rabbit carcasses, and tasty and healthy dishes from this light dietary meat will often appear on your table. As you can see, the order of cutting can be slightly different, but even with a whole carcass, it is quite possible to cope quite quickly if you "bite" the spine with strong cutting scissors and do not try to cut the bone with a knife, but do it in the joints.