Here's the recipe I use. As with any recipe, you can cut it down and miss things out. For example, you don't need to marinade it over night if you don't want to, or miss out the brandy etc.
If you've got a whole rabbit, this is an excellent site that shows how to joint a rabbit:-
honest-food.net/2010/05/19/how-to-cut-up-a-rabbit/
Recipe for 4 people
1 bottle red wine
50ml brandy or port – optional
200ml stock
1kg rabbit meat
flour for dusting meat
80g smoked fatty bacon diced or cut into thin strips
1 bouquet garni (2 bay leaves, 2 sprigs of thyme, 2 sprigs of flat-leaf parsley)
4 juniper berries crushed – optional
1 onion diced
80g carrots peeled and diced
80g celery peeled and diced
2 garlic cloves peeled and crushed
12 button mushrooms
Pour the wine into a saucepan and boil until reduced by half to intensify the flavour, probably take about 10-15 mins. Add the herbs – and juniper berries if you have them - and allow to cool.
When cool add the meat, carrot, celery and onion and marinate in fridge overnight or as long as you've time for.
Remove and drain the meat and vegetables in a colander and keep the wine and herbs. Pat the meat dry.
Season flour with salt and pepper and toss the meat in it. Brown the meat in a frying pan over a medium heat in batches and remove.
Add the vegetables from above along with bacon to the frying pan until browned.
Add the meat and vegetables to a cast iron casserole dish along with the wine marinade and herbs from above and the stock and brandy. Also add the garlic. Heat and then simmer for two or three minutes. Taste to see if you need any extra salt.
If you don't have a cast iron dish then do the above in a saucepan and transfer to a pyrex type casserole dish for the next bit.
Put in the oven at 160c / fan 140c for 60 mins. Add the mushrooms and cook for another 30 mins – so 1 1/2 hours in total.
If at the end, you think the sauce is too thin then remove the meat and keep warm. Reduce the sauce over a high heat or use some cornflour.
This tastes even better reheated and is also very easy if you've got friends coming round as you can do all the hard work a couple of days earlier. So I cook it for 60 mins and then allow to cool, if the sauce is too thin then I'll reduce it at this point. Then, on the night, all I've got to do is put the mushrooms in and heat it up for 30 mins.