This week the recipe, chosen by Mr FC, is from Leith's. Both the book and the woman. To be precise from Prue Leith's Cookery Bible.
Prue Leith is an amazing woman who has trained extensively and when she found the quality of non-catering colleges in the UK to be lacking she opened her own school, which is now the school of cookery if you want to attain an International Baccalaureate in food. I was lucky enough to be an early student on one of her courses and I will never forget the lessons I learned there.
Rabbit has been the backbone of many peasant cuisines in Europe. Plentiful and easy to find in the wild or to raise and breed, it didn't just fill poachers pots. This version is a grand example of a poor persons dish elevated to grand cuisine. We reinforced that image with our choice of accompaniments - truffle mashed potatoes and red cabbage cooked in pear cider or perry as it's also known.
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| Put a good dose of salt in the water, it wants plenty to do the job. |
The main dish takes two days to prepare and includes a process known in Kashrut law as Keshering. This means to drive the last of the blood from the meat by soaking it in salt water, thus whitening the flesh of the animal.
So, on day one there is not much to do. First we take a skinned and decapitated rabbit and we cut it into 6 sections. Rabbits are readily available in your local butcher and game dealer, or in some supermarkets. They only cost a few pounds each, and a rabbit feeds two people. I'd recommend buying local rabbit over the very scrawny Chinese rabbits that some places sell, and not just because of the air miles.
Ok, so it's likely that you've got something like the image above sitting on your chopping board and you're wondering how to get from that to the 6 pieces that the recipe requires. How about a step by step for you? Bear in mind that the way I'm pointing the knife isn't always how you use it. Sometimes I'm just pointing to the place where I would use it. Ok? Right, let's get started!
People get quite shocked the first time they buy a rabbit. They're used to giblets coming in a bag and being optional. Most of our meat is so well cleaned and tidied that you hardly know where on the animal it comes from. This time you get to see it all. First off you can see a kidney. You'll want to remove that. You can cook it with the organs still in there, but Mr FC doesn't like offal, so we take it out for him. Just grab it and pull, it comes off quite easily.
Ok, the next thing to do is lift up the flap covering the ribs. Under there you're going to find a liver. It looks like the rabbit has several livers, but in fact it's made of several lobes all joined together. You'll also find the other rogue kidney and a membrane barrier blocking your way. We're going to pull out those organs and ignore the membrane for a moment. Because we have the back end cleared we may as well take those legs off.
Just before you pick up the knife and start waving it around, take a look at the pictures, see where my hands are. They are never in the path of the knife, even in the carefully posed stills shots that aren't how I would use a knife my fingers are again well out of the way. Never hold meat in your hand and drive the knife through it into your palm, never let your fingers get close to the sharp blade. When you do fine chopping your finger tips should be curved back and the side of the blade resting on the knuckle and the knife should never rise so far as to touch the knuckles with any part of the sharp edge. If you're serious about food your knives will be razor sharp, and it only takes a moments lapse of concentration and you're sitting in A&E holding a bag of ice and hoping they can sew it back on again. Please, be careful. Professionals cut themselves, that means you can too.
This is a case of me pointing with the knife. What you need to do is move the leg around until you feel where the hip is. If you try to go through the bone you're going to splinter it, even with a cleaver, and you'll get tiny needles of bone in your meat. So to avoid that we go through the joints. The tendons can be as tough as bone holding them together, so first we want to cut away the meat around the joint so we can see what we have to cut.
Lowering the knife I cut the flesh through once, and you can already see the head of the thigh bone in the middle there, that shiny grey piece. Now we cut the back of the joint, cleaning the flesh from there as well, and expose the tendons completely. I don't know why my hand turns my knife up like that, it does it without me noticing. I guess that's something I've learned from taking these photographs.
Here you can see that all that is holding the leg on now is a bunch of white tendons. Chop through these and your leg is free. Now repeat for the other leg.
When it comes to the front legs, follow the same procedure. You will, however, meet an option. You can remove the shoulder blade or leave it on the body. I've left it on the body quite deliberately so you can see why it's better to take it off!
Now we go back to that membrane and the chest. You can either use your knife by turning the rabbit over and snipping through the ribs on the board, or you can use poultry shears to cut through them. I'm demonstrating cutting through the ribs here, but you need to turn this upside down and put the knife towards the board. I'm only doing this because you can't see me cutting under the rabbit.
As you can see, when you tear through that membrane you expose more organs. This is the heart, nestled under the ribs. Again, pull it out. The Aorta which attaches the heart is quite thick, and it runs up the neck with the oesophagus and the wind pipe. If you give it a good pull you can take out the last remnants of these thick tubes. You'll find they're ridged, as though there are white rings set a distance apart from each other along the length. This is cartilage and it's job is to strengthen the wind pipe so it doesn't crush easily. Fascinating, but not really edible. Out it comes.
These white and pink squishy sponges are the lungs, just as before, pull them out. I pulled the heart and lungs out together, and so got the wind pipe, aorta and oesophagus all in one go.
Here you can see me pulling the lungs out to leave a clean cavity, offal free. If you have cats you can always boil up the offal a little, until its cooked, chop it and serve it to them mixed in with their regular food. Or if there is a fox nearby, put it raw on his path. It won't last long!
Here we have it all laid out in the order they sit in the rabbit. At the bottom, or far right, the peach pit of dark purple brown is the heart, then two lungs, what turned out to be 5 lobes of liver and finally, on the far left, two kidneys. If you open up any animal, bird or fish this is roughly what you can expect to find. Of course there are other things, like the stomach, bladder, bowel and gut, but the butcher had already removed these to stop the meat going off or spoiling. Right, back to the bunny.
I'm afraid you really can't be squeamish about this - if you enjoy eating rabbit you have to be prepared to get your hands bloody preparing it, just like other game. With the legs off, front and back, the only thing left is to snap the rabbits back in the middle, separating the two halves of the body. Bend it backwards until you feel with your thumbs that something has given in there. Then bend it back the other way and squish it together hard, concentrating on the place where you felt the spine give.
It doesn't hurt to just slot your knife between the two vertebrae and just make sure it's not going to be a problem by taking out some of the tendons and creating a bit of space there.
Now take your knife and again find the bone and cut away the flesh.
You'll notice I've opted to use my filleting knife for this job, over my chef's knife. If you're working with a smaller animal it's often easier with a thinner blade. You don't need a heavy knife for this work, just a fine, sharp one. My filleting knife fit the bill nicely.
Last of the flesh has gone, and only the spinal cord and a few tendons are left. Although I am holding the meat up and appearing to cut upwards you should do this flat on the board, with the blade of the knife down.
When you have cut all round you'll find that the spine is very easy to separate. Just grip both ends and pull! There you have it, two halves of rabbit.
The chest now needs opening up completely. Take your knife and use it to chase up the front, above the ribs and through the front of the throat. I don't need to mention that this is not how it should be done, do I? Put it down on the board. This is a still shot to show you where you're making the cut.
This allows you to butterfly the top half, flattening it out to make it easier to cook and handle during the next stages of the cooking. Flatten the rib cage out by bending the ribs backwards and popping them.
There you have it, six pieces of rabbit in cold, salted water, ready for its 3 hour swim. If you want to you can cut the top and bottom parts in half as well by removing the spine and cutting down the central line, but I really find it unnecessary. Also, this recipe says it feeds four. I'd dispute that quite vigorously. These days I serve half a rabbit per person, so if I were cooking this for four I would double the quantities of rabbit, tarragon and mustard. The rest of it seems to work to make enough sauce for four without adding more, unless you want gallons of gravy.
As much as we'd all love to grow tarragon in our gardens, not all of us can. Enter supermarkets stage left with plants of ready grown herbs and bags of them, too. This small bag and a small pot of French mustard are all that's needed for the next stage.
Strip the leaves from a couple of the tarragon branches.
Work against the leaves, from the top down, wrap your fingers found the stem and run them to the end of the branch, you'll find the leaves come off very easily.
A couple of strands is plenty for the quantity we require. Don't chop the stems if you don't have to, use the fragile leaves and they won't add to the chew factor when it's all cooked.
Now we get to the chef's knife, a rounded blade that works perfectly at chopping herbs. Gather the herbs in your finger tips, and roll the leaves together if you can. Bend your fingers so that your knuckles are further forward than your finger tips and rest the side of the blade against your knuckle.
Carefully, without raising the sharp edge of the blade higher than your knuckle, rock the blade on that rounded edge against the board. As you practice this you will soon be able to chop herbs faster than the herb choppers they advertise on TV. A few seconds and the herbs have had their first chop, then you take your hand away and just use your knife hand to gather the herbs with the blade and roughly rock the blade through them, this time with the curved part of the blade doing the cutting. And there you go. One spoonful of chopped tarragon plus a little bit left over.
Put the herbs in the bowl where you want the mustard to be mixed. Get your teaspoon out and spray it with a little vegetable oil. This will help to get the mustard out of the spoon, instead of you needing another spoon to clear it out.
Make the spoonfuls roughly level, maybe a little extra to allow for what stays in the spoon despite everything, and then use the spoon for mixing so you have plenty of marinade.
Once it's well mixed you can set it aside while the rabbit soaks. Time to put your feet up and check your email maybe?
Three hours later and we can see a change in the rabbit. The blood in the meat has been driven out into the water and the flesh is now eerily pale.
Empty out the water and wash the rabbit well. I use the same pot, empty out as much as I can and then leave it under a running, cold tap for a while, stirring it with my hands to get all the blood out and rinsing each piece under the tap as I take it out of the bowl.
When it's clean lay it out on kitchen paper.
Using another piece of kitchen paper dab the meat dry, getting into all the little holes where water can hide. If you don't do this properly the mustard will just slide off the meat, so make sure you get it as dry as you can.
Splat the mustard on well, I suggest portioning it out before you start spreading, figuring out how much for which limb.
Once they're all smothered on top you want to refrigerate them. Yes, I know, they're only covered on one side. Don't, whatever you do, double the mustard. For a start you'll overwhelm the taste of other things in the sauce unless there is another rabbit in the pot.
The easiest way to get the mustard on both sides is simply to stack the pieces one on top of the other. Put the ribs at the bottom, as they won't be eaten anyway, then the saddle or back half, then the back legs and finally the front legs. There you go, both sides now in contact with the marinade. Shove this in the fridge overnight and get on with your day.
Now, the following day brought a bit of a disaster. We needed truffle oil for the mash. I'm used to going to my local Sainsburys or Waitrose and just picking up a bottle. Often there's a choice of types as well. However, beggars can't be choosers and when after searching all the local supermarkets all we could turn up was olive oil and a jar of truffles in their own juices that was what we settled for.
Get an old bottle with a good stopper, or even use the bottle the olive oil is in if you like! In this case I used a bottle that had previously held Farnese Olive Oil. Being dark it was perfect for the job. It also meant I could poke my tongue out at Mr FC who always moans that I keep empty bottles and jars and don't do things with them.
The truffles, of course, refused to be the right size to go in the neck of the bottle, and being a bit crusty on the outside they don't like being squeezed.
Simple solution? Cut them up! One pair of scissors and one snip later we have a halved truffle.
Use a wooden spoon handle or chopstick to make sure the neck of the bottle is cleared and the mushrooms are at the bottom of the bottle.
The potent juice that the truffles were in can also be added to kick start the process of flavouring the olive oil. After all, it only contained truffle juices and a little salt and truffle flavouring.
Next you want to fill the bottle almost to the top with really good quality olive oil. This isn't the one I'd normally choose, but it is a cold pressed extra virgin olive oil. Those are the terms you need if you want the very best oil. Also, if the bottle has bits at the bottom or floating in it, don't panic. It's only olive puree! It's a sign of a good oil that has plenty of flavour.
Finally put a cap on the bottle and give it a really good shake before putting it somewhere safe. Make sure you go back to it regularly and give it another shake or the flavour won't infuse through the whole bottle.
Finally our ingredients are ready for prepping. You can see on the plate where a little blood is still running out of the rabbit. This is good. It means the salt did its job.
It says to fry it in butter, but butter burns at a very low heat. So to top it up we add in some olive oil, which won't burn at the heat we're using, and a little bit of butter for taste. This prevents the butter from burning and stops it from going brown, too.
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| Under the plate you can just see the silver and grey base of the scales |
Since I wasn't about to buy a whole bacon joint for 85 grams of bacon I opted for Waitrose's lardons. These are, effectively, bacon, but it's pre-diced for you to use when you want a good dollop of bacon flavour. They come in smoked and unsmoked, we went for unsmoked so it didn't compete with the mustard.
My Salter scales are amazing. A plate that sits over a clock on the wall. You take the plate off and put your things on it and the weight lights up on the clock. It does grams, ounces, fluid ounces and millilitres. You can also use the tare function to zero the scale at any point. Very useful.
Another useful gadget is the Alligator. I admit to being one of those people who see a gadget and go "Oooh!" But I'm also one of those people who after inspecting it sees the pitfalls or the fact that it won't do the job any better than I can do it now, and put it back on the shelf. These, however, proved to be a godsend. A friend of mine was using the large one for onions when I stayed with them and cooked a Stroganoff. Lots and lots of shallots means very sore eyes and lots of sneezing and crying. To save this she had her husband cut them in the press. Just lift up the white plate, set the shallot or onion on the green pad, close the plate down and press. The cubes of onion end up in the container on the top. No crying, no sore eyes and no runny nose! I immediately went out and bought both sizes from the Steamer Cookshop in Alfriston.
Cutting this onion open shows you clearly the tough root and tip of the onion, and why you want to get rid of them. Bitter and tough they will spoil any dish.
Chop them off completely, leaving no trace behind.
When you peel the onion look for things that may cause problems. In this case a bit of mould that has dried out the first layer of the onion. Discard this, too.
The Alligator has a little white plate that sits over the top of where you put your onion or garlic. This is so that you can just lift it up to remove the debris when you're done.
A quick snap down of the lid and there's the first bit of onion, neatly cut fine and not a single tear was shed. Repeat with all of the onion.
Mash needed preparing, so Mr FC peeled potatoes ready to be boiled until soft.
The white mat lifts up bringing a blanket of unwanted onion skins that would otherwise have been trapped and dried out in the tines.
There's not much you can do about the top, but a stiff brush soon has it cleared.
So, we now have our lardons, our garlic and our onion and some butter. Time to cook!
The stock is measured out and ready to go. The pot of stock we had wasn't quite a pint, it was short about an ounce or so. Just top it up with water, it'll be fine. Also, the recipe states white stock, which may confuse you looking at the brown liquid in that jug. That means the stock is made from white meat bones - veal, chicken, rabbit and such - and so is a lighter stock for cooking with and not so intensely brown as a brown stock. It also doesn't have the heavy flavour of the brown stock.
Heat your oil and butter until they start to bubble and add your first bits of rabbit.
This time we're using the heavier, Meyer pan because we want to hold the heat up quite high.
Don't worry if it doesn't all fit in the pan, just do it in a couple of batches or more. Don't overload the pan or you'll just get steamed rabbit from too many juices running out of half cooked meat.
Here's the problem with the shoulder blades - remember those? Because we left them on they now act like wings and trap mean under them that doesn't get browned. It's quite a feat to get that meat on it's side with the shoulder blade held back and brown that meat. You'll only do this once - next time it will come off with the front leg.
Make sure all of the meat is well browned as this is the only chance it has to gain colour.
Propping the meat up to get under the shoulder blade.
As the last of the batch finishes browning the last bit of rabbit goes in. Now you can see the colour that you're aiming for, that rich, golden brown.
When the rabbit is browned, take it out and put it in the casserole. Then add your onions and lardons to the pan. If you don't have a lot of oil left in the pan, don't worry. The fat in the bacon will melt into the pan giving you an oil to fry with.
When it's all gently golden add in the garlic and cook it on for a minute, stirring the garlic through the onions and bacon.
Take the pan off the heat to add the flour and mix it gently into the mixture. This means it is only cooking with the heat from the pan, so it won't catch or burn.
With it still off the heat we slowly start to add the stock, little by little, stirring well to keep the lumps at bay.
Once it's all in there put it back on the heat and bring it to a good boil. This ensures there is no flour taste in the pot and that all the little bits of goodness stuck to the pan are lifted. We've done this before with the Carbonade, it's called deglazing.
Mr FC washes up as we go to keep the kitchen orderly.
Finally tip the stock, bacon, onion, garlic and flour into the casserole over the rabbit.
Now we pop the lid on and set it in the oven for an hour and a half or until the meat is tender. This oven has a terrific gadget. It has a removable cradle on the oven door that holds a roasting tin, or on which you can put a casserole. This means that you don't have to dive into the oven and burn yourself or risk dropping the tray when you pull it out to turn something, the whole thing comes out to you and you can turn or baste in safety. Every oven should have one!
It took us one minute until we got a good shot of the timer. Taking the flash off when dealing with shiny surfaces is a good idea...
Taking out one of Mr FC's Global knives and opting for a heavy half cleaver I set about the red cabbage. It's such a pretty vegetable. First cut it in half.
Then halve it again, into quarters. The pattern inside demonstrates the mathematical progressions that you find everywhere in nature. This one just happens to be very pretty. I have been found standing, staring at the cabbage and finding things in the swirls before now. A swift nudge and I'm back on Earth again.
Generally a quarter per person is enough. Once it's chopped and cooked it does swell up.
Here you can see the difference between a quarter that has had the exposed outer leaf removed and one that hasn't. Do take the outer leaves off and wash your cabbage well, you never know what might be on it, and it's not just pesticides, either!
Next you want to cut the tough core out of the cabbage, easily done by cutting it diagonally.
The back of this core is almost like a Christmas tree.
Now you want to shred the cabbage. Start by standing it on end and slowly rocking it backwards as you chop, so the slices are even.
Rock the cabbage right the way round until you're at the end.
Even slices ready for the pot.
Trouble's wondering where her share of the rabbit is. Sorry kitty, not this time.
Red onions need topping and tailing just as much as yellow ones do. This just happened to be the only other onion we had in the house, but it went prettily with the cabbage.
Since Mr FC is also a body builder and has far more muscles than I, it's his job to press the soft potato through the ricer. He's given to making a bit of a mess with this, so I make him do it in the sink where some of it at least will be contained. Hopefully.
One big squeeze and a potato surrenders, passing through the holes to make a light, fluffy pile that looks like a cross between pasta and rice. You will never have fluffier potato than you get with a ricer. Buy a good one and throw the masher away!
Adding in a little of the truffle oil.
Meanwhile, back at the stove, we start to heat up our olive oil and butter in a good sized saucepan.
Add in the chopped onion and fry it until lightly golden.
This is when you want to add your cabbage. Frying the onions off on a highish heat means that we get the caramelised sugar in them that adds to the sweetness of the cider.
It's amazing the colour difference the flash makes, turning the dark red cabbage a bright purple!
Add your pear cider and watch as it fizzes up in the pan, hissing at you. Add it little by little, letting it die down nicely as you go.
Once it's all in and settled down you can put the lid on to let it simmer gently for 5 to 10 minutes. Check it regularly.
Ninety minutes later and the rabbit is done! Looking and smelling gorgeous.
The oil gets stirred in and mixed through the potato to make it smooth and tasty.
Put the rabbit on your serving plate with the mashed potato. It already looks amazing, but it's going to get better.
A few leaves off the parsley plant and remember that knife technique you just learned? You can use it again.
In just a few seconds the leaves are cut and chopped finely, ready to go. As much as I detest parsley it does actually add to the flavours of this dish so in this case I make an exception.
If you look closely the remaining sauce has a skin on it. That's not fat, or oil. If you put in a fork and wrap it round the tines it will pull out as a sheet. It's protein, pure and simple. The meat and bones have been giving up some of their protein to the sauce and it has floated to the top. You don't need to worry about this, when you stir the sauce it will all mix in and disappear.
After half an hour of hard boiling the sauce it was still very thin and runny, and there was a copious amount of it! We cheated. McDougalls Thickening Granules to the rescue. I just added a couple of spoons to the sauce and mixed it well, letting it boil up as the granules melted and disappeared. Mr FC asked what about a beurre manié? Well, that's what these granules are, only this version is a roux. They're a bit of flavourless vegetable shortening mixed with flour and made into tiny pellets that dissolve completely in hot liquids. I don't often cheat, but there are times when it's clearly going to be a lot easier than reducing litre after litre of stock down to a thick sauce!
As you can see, it worked! The colour intensified and the extra mustard that we had stirred in gave it a yellow tinge as well as a lovely smell of mustard and tarragon. If you have a problem and you know a good cheat - like this roux in a tub - don't be afraid to use it. Nobody is going to look down their nose at you because you did something a bit different with their perfect meal. In fact, I don't know any cooks who have never cheated. It can be as simple as a dessert dropped on the floor and having to bodge together a replacement dish very quickly, or finding that you have a runny sauce. There's a reason the fixes exist, and it's because problems happen.
The red cabbage doesn't take long to cook, so watch out that you don't make it soggy. You want it with a little firmness to it, but not hard and crunchy.
Pour the sauce over the rabbit.
The salt and pepper pots went unused as the seasoning in everything was already perfect. You may want a turn or two of pepper when you balance the seasoning, but don't forget that the rabbit was soaked in salt water and still has quite a lot of salt in it already - and will have imparted that to the sauce as well.
Mr FC didn't wait for the photographs, he just dived right in!
The red cabbage gives the plate a festive appearance.
Plated, parsleyed and ready to eat!
Now the rabbit bones have been cooked they're not just tiny, but they're friable. You an easily pick one up in your fingers and bend it over and watch it snap. Some of these bones are incredibly tiny and you really need to watch out - just like those needle bones you get in chicken legs, only much smaller.
This little critter was only 4mm long, but it's enough to stick in your throat or you gums and cause you a lot of pain. I don't like trips to the hospital, so I search my meat thoroughly before it goes in my mouth.
I swear there's an alien peeking out the middle of this picture! See what I mean about the bones - you can just about make out the pattern on the plate through the shoulder blade.
So there you have it, Mustard Rabbit. Not a quick dish as such, because it takes 2 days, but a very easy and simple dish that tastes amazing. I didn't think I was going to be able to eat much, but the next thing I knew there was just a pile of bones on my plate. The red cabbage was amazing with the pear flavour and sweet onion, and the truffle oil in the potato gave everything a rich, musky edge that truly elevated this meal to the level of gourmet food.
We hope you'll enjoy making this dish and eating it as much as we did, why not let us know how you get on or if you have any questions. Just use the comment box at the bottom of the blog.
Enjoy!
Mr & Mrs FC x
Mustard Rabbit (Printable Version)
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 rabbit, skinned and cleaned
7 tsp French mustard
1 tsp chopped fresh tarragon
45g or 1.5 oz butter or bacon dripping
85g or 3oz bacon or salt pork, diced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 tsp plain flour
570ml or 1 pint white stock
To garnish:
Chopped, fresh parsley
Method:
If the rabbit's head has not been removed, cut it off with a sharp heavy knife.
Then joint the rabbit into 6 neat pieces.
Soak the rabbit in cold salted water for 3 hours.
Drain and dry well. (This is to whiten the rabbit.)
Spread 6 teaspoons mustard mixed with the tarragon over the rabbit pieces and refrigerate overnight.
The next day, preheat the oven to 170ºC/325ºF/gas mark 3.
Heat the butter or dripping in a frying pan and brown the rabbit pieces all over.
Remove them with a slotted spoon and place in a casserole.
Add the bacon and onion to the pan and cook over a low heat until th eonions are soft and just browned.
Stir in the garlic and cook for 1 minute.
Remove the pan from the heat and gradually stir in the stock.
Return to the heat and bring the sauce slowly to the boil, stirring continuously.
Pour this sauce over the rabbit.
Cook in the oven for about 90 minutes or until the rabbit is tender.
Lift the rabbit onto a warmed serving dish.
Add 1 teaspoon mustard to the sauce and check the seasoning.
Boil for 1 minute.
If the sauce is now rather thin, reduce it by boiling rapidly until shiny and rich in appearance.
Pour the sauce carefully over the rabbit pieces.
