Peppered Rabbit Stew

Friday, 20th December 2013

Joint the rabbit, coat the pieces in seasoned flour. Fry some bacon lardons in a casserole and add and brown chopped onion and garlic. Remove and add the rabbit pieces to brown all over (in batches if necessary. Remove the rabbit and deglaze the casserole with red wine, scraping up any bits. Put the rabbit, and bacon and onion mix back in, with some rosemary twigs and a handful of pink peppercorns, and add more red wine and stock to cover the meat. Cover and cook in the oven for 2 or 3 hours at 120°, so the gravy is just bubbling.
Add some sliced wild mushrooms and peeled button onions and cook for another 30 minutes. Remove all the meat, mushrooms, onions etc. to the upturned casserole lid and thicken the remaining gravy with beurre manie. Served with sautéed potatoes and steamed cabbage. Fantastic, especially the gravy. The pink peppercorns are peppery when bitten but not powerful, rather with a sweet, fruity undertone.

Veal Fricasse

Saturday, 26th October 2013

Based on this but with a mix of wild mushrooms (chanterelles, cèpes, oyster mushrooms, kräuter-seitling) instead of just button mushrooms.
I haven't had much luck keeping the meat tender in stews recently, but this came out fine. Strangely some pieces of meat were chewier than others though. I browned the meat in two batches to start with, and one cooked much more quickly than the other, so I wonder if that had something to do with it.
Lovely rich and flavourful sauce, although the mushrooms, especially the cèpes, were a little overcooked and should have gone in 5 minutes later.

Seafood Stew

Friday, 12th October 2013

Based on this recipe in the Guardian Recipe Swap.
I used a mix of salmon, cod and rotbarsch (redfish?), fresh king prawns and baby calamari, and fresh tomatoes instead of tinned. My chorizo (actually an italian variation) was pretty spicy, so I left out any additional chilli. Otherwise I followed the recipe fairly closely.
Served with saute potatoes and crusty bread for mopping up.
I was very pleased with how this came out. The fish chunks were perfectly cooked and flavourful, the calamari were tender and the prawns provided a nice contrast in texture. The tomato sauce was rich and thick and the red pepper retained a good bite. The spiciness of the chorizo was just right for me - enough to make your nose run a little, but allowing all the other flavours to come through. For Monika it was a little too spicy, and she suggested substituting good bacon and some ground chilli, which would also have been good I think.
A winner, and worth repeating.

Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit

Sunday, 30th December 2012

Rabbit stew and dumplings, with boiled potatoes and "Spitzkohl".
My local supermarket is large but has surprisingly little variety of fresh meat and vegetable. However, whole rabbit does appear on the shelves at festivals like Easter and Christmas, so I like to take advantage.
I jointed the rabbit, coated it with seasoned flour and browned the pieces in dripping. Then browned onions and root vegetables in the same pan, and transfered everything to the slow cooker with a large amount of chopped herbs, a few squashed juniper berries and the rabbit heart, liver and kidneys in a muslin bag. I covered the meat with a mix of white wine and stock and let it cook on medium for about 7 or 8 hours.
For the cabbage (there seems to be no special English name for Spitzkohl), I friend some diced bacon and then sautéed the chopped cabbage in the fat for 10 minutes or so, then added a splash of white wine vinegar, a teaspoon of sugar and mixed in a good knob of butter at the last minute. Topped with diced tomato.
I still cannot get dumplings right. These were OK, but too greasy and didn't rise enough.
The rabbit had a lovely flavour but was a bit overcooked. Should have used the low setting on the slow cooker for that length of time. The cabbage was excellent.
For future stews I think I would try red wine and also add fried bacon and chopped rabbit's innards at the beginning (as in this Alpine Rabbit Stew recipe).

Rabbit Stew with Dumplings

Sunday, 25th March 2012

I had about half a rabbit, basically the back legs. Dusted them with seasoned flour, browned them is a casserole and removed them to a plate. Added bacon, onions and garlic to the casserole and cooked until the onion was starting to brown, then removed those too. Added a good quantity of red wine and let it bubble while scraping up the bits from the bottom. Put everything back in, added some chopped fresh tomatoes and rosemary and shoved it in the oven with a lid on, medium heat, for a couple of hours. Then added some chunks of leek and dumplings, and turned the heat up a bit for a half an hour. Served with simple roast potatoes.
The rabbit was tender and flavourful and the sauce was really delicious. My dumplings are getting a bit better, I'm paying more attention to getting the amount of flour and fat right (2:1), but these were still not as light as I've had recently at a friend's house. More practise needed.

Rabbit Stew with Prunes

Friday, 13th January 2012

We've had whole rabbits available in the supermarket lately, so I got one for this stew (The Cook Book p251), although I put in more things than the basic recipe calls for.
Flour the rabbit pieces and brown them in butter, remove from the pot and brown bacon and onions, then put the rabbit back. Add a good deal of red wine, some chopped tomatoes and tomato puree. Simmer for 90 minutes and add mushrooms, prunes and leeks after an hour or so. Then raise the heat a little, add dumplings and cook covered for another 20 minutes.
I served sauteed potatoes cut like thick chips, but I burnt the butter before they went in, so I had to use duck fat instead, which turned out rather well!

Mahi Mahi and Vegetable stew

Sunday, 14th August

Japanese style stew with no particular recipe. I fried some shallots and ginger and added potato cut into small pieces, then sake, mirin, water and a little soy sauce. Then, at various points, diced pumpkin, tiny aubergines halfed, yellow courgette sliced, spring onions, bok choi, the mahi mahi and shitake mushrooms.
When the fish was done I finished it off with a little more soy, ponzu sauce and sansho pepper. I used a wide shallow pan and kept the veggies separate, so the various colours and shapes looked fantastic when it was done. But I messed up the photo, so you'll have to take my word for it.
Tasted good too, although the spring onions and aubergines should have gone in later.

Beef Stew and Dumplings

Thursday, 10th February

Leg of Beef Stew with herb dumplings, done in the slow cooker.  Coat the leg slices in seasoned flour and fry until browed on both sides.  Remove the meat and add red wine to the pan, then stock and tomato puree.  Put the meat in the slow cooker with some whole shallots and cover with the liquid.  Cook on high for 6-7 hours, or longer on medium.  Make dumpling dough with 1/3 suet and 2/3 flour and add herbs and baking powder.  Divide into small balls. Put some diced veggies and small potatoes into the pot and then the dumplings, making sure they go half way down into the liquid but aren't squished.  Cook for another hour or more.
My dumplings were lovely and fluffy but I was a bit generous with the suet so a little too fatty. The meat could have done with another hour even but was still very tasty. A richer sauce (beer?) would have been better.