It's rabbit season. Or, rather, rabbits are on special at the local poultry shop.
This recipe is the first to bring into the picture my butchery skills. Rabbit, see, was one of the first animals I broke down into primary cuts. The first couple of times, I made a real mess of it. Same, too, with my first attempt at duck. It took practice to understand the standard advice for breaking down small animals. To turn the idea of carefully drawing your knife along the length of the bones and working with, rather than against, the creature's joints from theory into practice.
Larousse Gastronomique says that rabbits should be broken down into six pieces: two front legs, two back legs and two pieces of saddle. And that's exactly what I did. From experience I knew that some pieces of the rabbit--the front ribs, the belly 'flaps' that hang off either side of the saddle--don't have much meat on them and constrict during cooking so I trimmed these off. I think, overall, I did an okay job, although there's a noticeable inconsistency in the size of the rear leg portions. With the legs I carefully but forcefully dislocated the shoulder and hip joints. The only bone I actually cut through was the spine when breaking down the saddle.
The book also says that commercially-reared rabbits should be marinated for a few hours in a mixture of wine, herbs and vegetables. I bought a wild rabbit but did this anyway, even though the recipe didn't ask for it, as rabbit stew always seems to work better for me when I sit the meat in wine for at least a few hours. I'm unsure of how much marinades actually contribute to the tenderness and juiciness of meat--I'm under the impression they only help a little bit--but in my experience they do good things to rabbit.
My marinade was a mixture of maybe 3/4 of a bottle of white wine, the juice of one lemon, most of the peel of that lemon, a spring of thyme, a sprig of parsley, a spring of rosemary, a couple of dried bay leaves, salt and pepper.
To prepare the rabbit, remove it from the marinade. Brush off any bits of herb or lemon peel as these will burn when you put the meat in the pan. Heat some olive oil in a pan. Fry the rabbit pieces for 10 minutes or until browned nice and evenly. Set aside.
Add to the pan 20 cloves of garlic (peeled, whole). Cook them for a couple of minutes. Now, transfer the meat and garlic into a small ovenproof vessel: a little casserole dish, say. Add, too, the reserved marinade (drain it first), the juice of two lemons, a sprig of thyme and a fresh bay leaf. Bring the liquid to the boil and then put the lid on the pan and place it in the oven at 180 degrees. The recipe says to cook it for a hour but I get the impression they're dealing with farmed rabbit, even though they don't say one way or the other directly, as later recipes specifically mention wild rabbit. I'm using wild rabbit here and I have no idea if it was a young bunny or an old bunny before it met its maker. So I'm playing it safe and giving it 90 minutes in the oven.
The rabbit turned out okay, I think. The liquid component of the stew is nice with a mellow sourness and mild garlickness. If I'd used home-grown garlic I think it'd be overpoweringly garlicky, though. The rabbit is still a bit dry. Not inedible and perhaps not even bad. But not quite where I want it. Certainly using a commercially-reared rabbit would produce superior results in terms of moistness/dryness but then the meat wouldn't have as much flavour.
19. Potatoes a la sarladaise
'a la Sarladaise' refers to a style of preparing potatoes that is practiced in the Perigord region of France. You saute thin slices of potato in goose fat and sweat them with parsley and garlic. At least, that's what the 'a la Sarladaise' entry says. The recipe in the potatoes entry, though, says to peel and wash some potatoes and then cut them into eighths. Goose fat is hard to find and expensive. Duck fat is fairly expensive too but easier to find: most poultry shops and some supermarkets stock it. Essentially you saute the potatoes for a while (bless Larousse's vagueness: it's unclear whether, as the 'a la Sarldaise' entry suggests, you cook the potatoes in goose fat and then let them sweat in the oven, or if you're just giving them a bit of colour) in the fat, season them and introduce them to everyone's favourite root vegetable, Mr Garlic.
The recipe calls for ceps, too. I don't have ceps. I think I maybe saw fresh ceps at Queen Victoria Market one time, maybe, but I've heard that oyster mushrooms make an acceptable substitute. Oyster mushrooms are reasonably priced and avaliable locally. On a hot day, that beats the hell out of heading into the city for what may not even be avaliable and what is probably, if it's in stock, insanely expensive. You add the sliced mushrooms to the pan with the potatoes, put the lid on the pan and slide the thing in the oven (200 degrees) for 40 minutes.
So far I've liked all of Larousse Gastronomique's potato recipes. I enjoyed the sauteed (cooked) potatoes most of all but this one had the sort of soothing qualities only soft potatoes and rendered duck fat can offer. The mushrooms weren't so nice after 40 minutes cooking in duck fat. I wonder if a dusting of porcini powder would be better.
20. Carrots a la forestiere
Ah. The twentieth Larousse Gastronomique recipe done and dusted. Only how many hundred to go? Yeah.
The entry for 'a la forestiere' ('forestiere' unsurprisingly means 'forest') speaks of a method for preparing small cuts of meat or chicken--or even vegetables and eggs, like they're an after thought--by garnishing them with mushrooms that've been sauted until sexy in butter. It says, too, you can even add bacon.
The first recipe under the 'forestiere' heading calls for carrots to be braised in butter and served with a garnish of mushrooms and parsley. That's it. I had an open packet of oyster mushrooms from the potatoes a la Sarladaise so I used them up here.
20.5. Braised baby carrots with caramelised gingerbread sauce
I know, I know. I'm cheating. I'm not making the caramelised gingerbread sauce. Ergo, I won't check this recipe off in my Excel document. I'll come back and make this in full at some point because hey, carrots and gingerbread sound like an interesting combination.
Anyway, to braise carrots you combine them with a little bit of salt and sugar. You brown them in some olive oil and then cover them in stock--I have no stock at the moment, so I used water--and then you add a knob of butter and cook them for 20 minutes.
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