Rabbit butchering - No pruners
- Details
- Published: Wednesday, 25 December 2013 15:08
- Written by David DeCiero
I had watched a few you tube videos of how to butcher a rabbit prior to trying it out. All of those videos suggested the use of pruners to clip off the front and back legs. Although easy, this made the carcass have 4 sharp bones with jagged edges stick out. Having recently butchered a few turkeys, I knew that there was a way to get clean knuckles for the legs. I had three more to do, so I figured I would try it out on them.
I did a couple things differently this time around. First, I immediately cut off the head after using the pipe method to dislocate their neck. This resulted in better drainage of blood from the neck area. It previously had congealed there because I started cutting the back before I had cut the neck. This allowed for some time for the blood to congeal. It didn’t affect the meat, but it looked pretty gross. The second thing was the feet to get the clean knuckles. On the front feet, I felt for the last joint and simply cut around the whole joint with a knife. I then just bent this joint until it cracked and it came right off. The piece left was a simple joint with no sharp edges. On the back, it was much easier. Near the last joint there (which is a lot farther from the end due to the hock), I just cracked it. There was 1 tendon that still attached the joint to the hind quarter, so I just cut that with a knife. This left me with 4 very clean joint and no more sharp edges.
I would not recommend using the pruner method due to those sharp edges. It’s not like they will slice you open, but it just doesn’t look as good. Also, when vacuum sealing (to prevent freezerburn), there is less of a chance of puncture. For these reasons, I would recommend taking a couple extra minutes to dislocate those joints rather than cut them with pruners. The job will look more professional.