Monday 18 May 2009

Recipe - Wild Rabbit Casserole


Poor Bambi, first his mother and now Thumper...

I guess you are not easily offended if you are still reading this post after that opening sentence. ;-)

I've eaten rabbit on quite a few occasions but this was the first time I've tried my hand at cooking it. It was during one of my normal strolls in the supermarket that I noticed something new on the shelf in the meat section. There were new packages containing rabbit.

The choice was between a half rabbit or some diced meat. This time I went for the diced variety, next time I'll go for the other one.

The packaging wasn't all that helpful when it came to cooking ideas. It went something along the lines of: Coat pieces in flour, fry until lightly browned, put in a casserole dish, cover with liquid and vegetables, cook for 70 minutes in a 170c oven.

As I said, not too helpful. But this is what I came up with, I think it tasted very nice. On a sidenote, as you can see I served it on mixed beans. It worked, but I think mash or perhaps just boiled potatoes could work better.

Enough waffling, over to what I did to poor old Thumper...

Ingredients (serves 4)
300g diced rabbit
3 tbsp flour
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
1 onion, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
6 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, roughly cut
1 small leek, halved and sliced
100g mushroom, sliced
1 large carrot, sliced
600 ml stock
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 - 3 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tbsp dried oregano

Method
Heat the oven to 170c.

Pour the flour into a plastic bag and season well. Toss the rabbit pieces in the flour and put to the side, preserve the flour.

Heat some olive oil in a deep frying pan and fry the rabbit, in batches, until lightly brown. Put the rabbit into a casserole dish as you go.

Once all the rabbit is done add some more olive oil if needed and fry the garlic, onion and bacon until the onion is starting to soften. Add the leek, carrot and mushroom and fry for another 3 minutes or so until stirring in the reserved flour. Keep cooking for another minute, stirring all the time.

Add the stock, brown sugar and vinegar as well as the soy sauce, mustard and dried herbs. Keep stirring as you bring it to the boil. Once boiling, pour it over the rabbit in the casserole dish.

Pop the casserole dish into the oven for about 70 minutes or until the rabbit is nice and tender.

Serve with your choice of sides.

Enjoy!

3 comments:

  1. I'm going to try your recipe - I have made rabbit soup once - not bad, but still have an emotional attachement to the fluffy ones(:-D

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm glad you liked it and that you are going to try it.

    As always, this is just an idea or guideline. Freestyle it to suit your tastes and preferences.

    I guess it's easier to cook it when it comes ready diced in a plastic container like this.

    I hope you like it when you try it!

    // Mike

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like your recipe I want to try one of this and i think this is a healthy recipe like in the http://vegetable-recipes.net/.

    ReplyDelete

Please leave a comment. Positive or negative - all comments are welcome and useful. I do enjoy hearing what you think of my posts, what is good and what needs improving so please post away.

// Mike