Grilled Rabbit with Herbs

Combine the water, salt, and sugar into big bowl. Carefully put the rabbit (whole and skinned or already portioned) into a gallon size zip lock bag. Pour brine in over the rabbit (I added a sprig of fresh rosemary here, as well as the zest of one lemon) and seal up the bag. Put back in big bowl and let rest in the fridge for one hour. The brine should cover all parts of the meat (this is tenderizing the rabbit, which tends to get very dry during cooking).

Just before pulling out the rabbit, make the marinade/baste out of the remaining ingredients. Chop the rosemary and garlic pretty finely (that way it stays on the baster rather than in the cup!) and stir everything to combine. Set it near the rabbit station.

After an hour (or more, I did two hours with no harm), pull out the rabbit from the brine. Discard the brine. If your rabbit was whole, now’s the time to carve up the rabbit. I ended up grilling the legs, arms, and tenderloin (long piece of muscle that runs from below the ribcage to the tailbone), and saving the rest for a stew. As you cut each piece, dip it into the marinade and let it start flavoring while you finish the butchering.

On the grill, set it to low or medium low heat. Rabbit does not have much fat on it at all, so it dries out really quickly. Baste every five minutes. Although we kept everything on for nearly the full 30 minutes, it would have been better to pull the tenderloin after 22-25 and the arms at 25 minutes.