Place quartered rabbit pieces into a 12 quart sauce pot with black pepper, red pepper, salt and enough water to cover rabbit.  Boil rabbit until tender.  This is determined by the age of the rabbit.  A young rabbit will be done in about 30 to 45 minutes but an old rabbit can take as long as 2 hours.  When fork tender done, remove rabbit pieces from broth saving broth for later usage.  Beat egg and milk together and dip rabbit into the mixture and allow excess to drain off.  Coat rabbit pieces in flour that has been seasoned with salt and black pepper.  Fry in a large skillet on medium/high heat until rabbit is golden brown and turn and brown the other side. Remove rabbit from the skillet reserving about 2 tablespoons of the oil and rabbit flour residue.  Add the flour a tablespoon at a time to the hot oil and cook until a dark brown color is obtained.  This is a country version of rue (flour and oil).  Add rabbit broth to the cooked flour/oil mixture and allow the gravy to thicken. 

You can add the fried rabbit pieces to the gravy and simmer covered on low heat for an hour or more if desired.  Serve the fried rabbit and gravy with rice or mashed potatoes and a good batch of homemade lard buttermilk biscuits. The gravy needs to be much thinner than normal if you plan on simmering the rabbit an hour or more and you need to still often to keep the rabbit from sticking to the pan.

YIELD:  4 servings

Note:  This was Pop's (William Allen Porter's) favorite meal.  The last time my bride and myself eat rabbit and gravy at Mom & Pops, Mom cooked 3 rabbits and I believe Pop and myself eat a rabbit each, not to mention a "pile" of homemade buttermilk biscuits and gravy.

Recipe from Ann Porter "Mom" with comments by Mickey Porter 02-19-99.  Below pixs taken 07-18-04.  I will add sequence pixs of the fried rabbit and gravy in the very near future.  Rabbit season is in and deer season is out, a very good time to be in the woods rabbit hunting with a pack of good beagles listening to the sweet music being made and of course adding a fresh rabbit to the hunting sack and freezer.

SMOTHERED AND COVERED WILD RABBIT AND GRAVY

INGREDIENTS:

2 rabbits, quartered                       2 cups plain all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon black pepper              2 teaspoons salt (to taste)
1 cup Canola oil or Olive oil          1 egg
1 cup whole or evaporated milk   4 shallots, sliced thin
1 teaspoon bacon fat                    2 cups chicken broth (14 oz. can)
2 cups beef broth (14 oz. can)     2 cups water
1 teaspoon thyme                      1/4 cup all-purpose flour for thickening
1/4 cup water reserved

In a shallow pan, add 2 cups of flour and season with salt and black pepper.  In a shallow bowl or pan whisk the egg and milk together and season with additional salt and black pepper.  Dredge the rabbit pieces in the seasoned flour and dip (drench) the rabbit in the egg and milk mixture allowing excess to drip off.  Drench the rabbit pieces again in the seasoned flour coating each piece completely.  In a large skillet on medium heat add the Canola oil and brown rabbit on all sides removing when browned.  In a small sauce pan, add one teaspoon of bacon fat or extra virgin olive oil and sauté the sliced shallots a few minutes until sweated down.  In a 12 quart stock pot add chicken stock, beef stock, water, salt, black pepper, thyme, shallots and rabbit and bring to a boil and reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 to 3 hours until rabbit pieces are tender.  A young rabbit will take less than an hour and an old rabbit will take 3 hours or more on low heat (simmering).  Once rabbit pieces are tender, mix together 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour and 1/4 cup of cold water and add to the rabbit mixture and allow gravy to thicken.  I added the flour and then the water to a quart Mason jar and sealed tight and shook the jar violently until the flour and water were thoroughly mixed.

YIELD:  4 or more servings.

I normally will parboil the rabbit before I fry them out especially if they are older rabbits.  I planned to take sequence pixs and you guessed it got ahead of myself and had to salvage this recipe and changed "directions in the middle of the stream".  Go ahead and grin now!  You can eliminate parboiling on a very young rabbit unless you plan to simmer them for several hours like I did today.  An alternate gravy selection is to use a couple cans of Cream of Mushroom soup like I do on my Country Style Venison Steak And Gravy and sauté a couple of onions sliced adding to the mixture.  Uncle Charlie Ryan of California sent me his rabbit and gravy recipe and it is with the mushroom soup and onions.