I am sure that I am not the only hunter who has experienced this phenomena. When you are out hunting deer you see rabbits and then you decided to go get you shotgun and hunt rabbit and see deer. I always seem to see rabbits when I am hunting something else and when I dedicate some time to hunting rabbits I see nothing. I have been lucky enough to get a few rabbits while out pheasant and grouse hunting but that it. And it s to bad really because I really like eating rabbits.
This last hunting season I didn't get a single rabbit while out hunting but I did get several rabbits to put in the freezer thanks to my father-in-laws live traps and a friend of mines dog. One of the ladies I work with would send me a text occasionally that her dog had killed another rabbit and would I like it. The answer of course is yes. So I ended up with 4 rabbits from her and a couple from Ted and before you know it I had a bunch of rabbits to use.
I normally would have just fried them or made some kind of stew but I had read a couple of different recipes that called for ground rabbit. I had 6 rabbits and figure I could bone them out and get a decent amount of meat to grind and then be able to try some of those recipes. From the six rabbits I got about 4 pounds of meat. Rabbits are very lean so I added some fat to it. I had ground bacon ends in with some venison and really enjoyed the results so I ground a pound of bacon ends into the rabbit as well. The first recipe I tried was a rabbit ragu and it was fantastic.
I had watched an episode of the River Cottage with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstahl a while back and he had made bunny burgers. The idea has sat with me for quite a while because I really wanted to make these burgers. The patties are just the ground rabbit and bacon ends that I grilled. By themselves they were out of this world delicious. But I couldn't just leave it there, I had to take to the next step with my Buffalo Blue Cheese Bunny Burgers. After grilling the patties I smothered them in homemade buffalo sauce and topped them with a shredded celery and blue cheese slaw. The end result was not just one of the best burgers I have ever made but one of the best burgers I have ever had.
To put it all together you could use a store bought buffalo sauce or make your own.
1/2 cup Crystal hot sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
4 tablespoons cold butter
In a small sauce pan add the hot sauce and brown sugar and heat over medium heat until is boils. then start whisking in the cold butter in small pieces. Remove from the heat before all the butter is melted and set aside for the burgers.
For the celery blue cheese slaw
6 stalks of celery
4 ounces of crumbled blue cheese
1/2 cup butter milk
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Black pepper to taste.
Using a vegetable peeler shred the stalks of celery, Combine the other ingredients together to make the blue cheese dressing and then combine with the celery.
Grill the burgers to 165 degrees and then top with buffalo sauce and celery slaw.
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