Meat – the correct internal temperature for rabbit meat

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I have never cooked rabbit before, and my charts don't include rabbit. Are there food safety considerations speaking for thorough heating, as with chicken, or is it acceptable to cook it medium rare? Also, what temperature corresponds with the different grades of doneness? I intend to roast half a small rabbit in the oven; the meat doesn't look suited for collagen-based cooking, the animal is probably too young.

Best Answer

In the food safety section of Modernist Cuisine (1-138) it says that all wild rabbit must be cooked through:

Wild rabbit must be cooked well done to kill any tularemia bacteria; for rare or medium cooked rabbit dishes, chefs can substitute farm-raised rabbits that have been kept segregated from their wild relatives by trustworthy breeders.

The section on meat (3-96) recommends bringing rabbit loin to an internal temperature of 59C (138F) and going by the section I've just quoted this is obviously only for farmed meat. The recommendation for the legs is to cook sous vide for 1 hour @ 66C (151F) which again obviously refers to farmed because that's definitely not long enough to tenderise wild rabbit meat.

I would really recommend cooking the leg meat and loin separately as I find that the loin dries out long before the legs are cooked through. The legs are much nicer braised too.