Rabbit pie recipe

This rabbit pie is under 520 calories per portion and only uses seven ingredients 

Although this recipe was first published in Woman’s Weekly magazine in 1925, it’s just as delicious now and is a good introduction to eating rabbit. You’ll need to go to the butcher to buy your rabbit meat as it’s not commonly sold in supermarkets. Rabbit meat has a similar flavour to chicken but has a meatier, earthier taste. 

Ingredients

• 1 rabbit, meat taken off the bones (use the bones for stock), along with liver and kidneys — there should be 750g (1½lb) meat in total
• 125g shoulder of pork or thick bacon, diced
• 1 medium egg, hard-boiled
• 1 puff pastry sheet, approx 320g
• Milk for glazing
• 300ml home-made rabbit or chicken stock

Method

1. Set the oven to 200C (180C fan, Gas 6). Put the rabbit, pork and sliced boiled egg into a 1.5litre pie dish (fill it well). Season with salt and pepper and add 1 tbsp water.
2. Roll pastry to fit the top of the pie. Use offcuts to create strips of pastry for the rim of the pie dish and secure them with a little water.
3. Put the pie lid on top and decorate with pastry leaves if you like. Make a hole in the centre of the pastry lid. Brush with milk, put on a baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes.
4. Turn the heat down to 180C (160C fan, Gas 4). Cook for another 25 minutes.
5. Take the pie out of the oven and pour the stock in through the hole in the crust. Leave the pie to cool, then put in the fridge overnight — the stock will set to jelly. Serve the pie cold with salad.

Top tips for making rabbit pie 

This pie is similar to a pork pie you might enjoy on a picnic. It can be eaten warm but it’s best to let it set overnight. You must use fresh, quality stock, otherwise it will not have enough gelatin to set and thicken. You can use chicken stock if you don't have time to make rabbit stock. 

To make your pie look professional you could use some leaf-shaped pastry cutters to make decorations for the top. 

4Pcs Leaves Shape Cookie Cutters - View at Amazon 

Once you’ve used these cutters to make decorations for your rabbit pie, you can use them to shape biscuit dough, marzipan and fondant icing. There are four designs and you can emphasise the vein details by going over the lines with the back of a cutlery knife. 

For something a little more common, try our chicken pie recipe. You might also like this Hairy Bikers steak and ale pie or our traditional turkey and mushroom pie.