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After reading through the cookbook thread from front to back, I bought a couple of the recommended works, including How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. I went straight to the index to look up what it says about rabbit which came as a surprise to me (p. 653 in the 2008 print):

But you can substitute rabbit---which really does taste like chicken---for virtually
any recipe for braised chicken.

This wasn’t at all what I expected. Just to give you some background: due to relatives who live in the country, my family always had a decent supply of rabbit meat. Until say five years ago we had rabbit once every other month, or more often; definitely more frequently than chicken. That said, I don’t recall rabbit to taste anything like chicken up to the point that apart from soup I don’t value the latter very much, while I absolutely love the former.

What I want to know: How does this substitution work? How far does it go (is it limited to braised food)? Is it reversible? What chicken recipe should I try with rabbit meat? Am I prejudiced against chicken ;-)?

References: some threads mention this substitution, but they don’t exactly answer my question.

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  • i found rabbit to taste like frog meat..
    – KMC
    Jun 16, 2012 at 7:05

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I would say he is referring to farmed rabbit which does have a very mild flavour akin to chicken especially compared to the wild stuff.

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  • Let me clarify that I wasn’t talking about game either. Afair all my rabbits up to date enjoyed an idyllic life on a farm.
    – Philipp Gesang
    Jun 14, 2012 at 9:13
  • Interesting, the farmed rabbit I get definitely resembles chicken in taste but the wild rabbit I get may as well be a completely different species. Thing is, if the rabbits you were getting were allowed run around free then maybe the ones I've getting have been confined in cages.
    – Stefano
    Jun 14, 2012 at 11:08
  • @phg I suspect age and diet could have substantial effects on flavor too, and in fact might be a big part of the reason wild game tends to taste different?
    – Cascabel ♦
    Jun 15, 2012 at 15:09
  • @Jefromi I guess so. My preferred hypothesis is that it might largely depend on how both kinds of meats are prepared, which afair used to be quite different. I’m already planning an empirical test: same recipe, different meat. (Biggest problem turns out to be the acquisition: the places where I looked so far sell rabbit only without the head, which takes much of the fun out of eating it :-/ )
    – Philipp Gesang
    Jun 15, 2012 at 19:22

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