Rabbit is best cooked with a long,slow method.This animal has zero body fat so some added liquid(dark beers, bacon fat)improves the finished product.I stew many,but if Im looky enough to harvest young tender bunnies I like to stuff them with fresh mushrooms,bacon and spices and slow cook them in the oven or crockpot.
When I hunt rabbit I do so with an accurate .22 rimfire and try for only headshots on sunning rabbits.They are much better tablefare when they have not had their paunchs ruptured by birdshot.

STEW, Fried, Baked, you name it. Rabbit is very good and 100% safe to eat. Unless you mishandle it during cleaning or let it sit out too long.

cant beat a nice rabbit stew , and rabbits are a blast to hunt especially with a beagle .

We par-boil the meat off of the bone and put the meat in brown gravy over mashed potatoes.

completely safe to eat and also clean this time of year; in summer cleaning them Tuleremia possible but these days that seems rare.

they can be tough fried, you would want to par-boil em. Bigjake has good advice.

skin and debone the rabbit, wash the pieces the cube into 1/2 to 1 inch cubes, lightly season with garlic salt, pepper and maybe cummin, then toss in bag of flour. shake off loose flour, then 1/8 inch of oil in med heated skillet and turn when lightly browned. remove meat and set aside while adding 1/8 cup - 1/4 cup flour(depending on amount of meat) back to the skillet, add small amounts of oil till the flour can be browned with out sticking (rue) add diced onions and anything else that you'd like, I add a 1/2 can of diced stewed tomatos sometimes. then add the meat back to the skillet mix well, cover and simmer 15-30, stirring occasionally till done. And OOOOOO eeeeeeee, we got some rabbit gumbo/stew, iiiiiii yyyyeeeeeee.