Rabbit surprise
28 March 2021 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeMy emergency rabbit turned out to be a great success -- so great that I have only just finished eating the last of the leftovers from the rabbit flamande, in all its different permutations! -- so I set off to purchase another one, at full price this time, proving that introductory offers can pay off for the vendor.
This one was not frozen when I got it, thus demonstrating that the carcases had indeed frozen solid on the stall in the snow-filled market square!
Since I am no longer suffering from an acute shortage of vegetables I was able to look up some of the various other rabbit recipes in my possession (in fact I have just acquired some charming pre-war recipe booklets which give further assorted methods of cooking rabbit, including a mulligatawny soup which specifies 'leftover remnants of rabbit' as the meat to be used!) I was intrigued by Marguerite Patten's post-war rationing recipe for 'rabbit surprise', but certainly didn't expect the result to be quite as successful as it proved to be; the (very un-English) ginger and hint of hot chilli in the rice make the perfect accompaniment to the slow-casseroled rabbit joints. I think the result is basically a rabbit paella.
You pre-cook the rice and you are supposed to brown the rabbit joints in hot fat in the meantime -- I forgot that part, and it was still very tasty. You need about half a pint of good gravy; I used the last of the stock from the bones of the previous rabbit, added to grated vegetables browned and braised with the minced rabbit offal.
Then you mix the cooked rice with thinly-sliced tomato, fine-chopped onion, ginger and cayenne (I used half a chilli instead, for just a touch of heat), put a layer of rice across the bottom of a greased casserole dish, lay the rabbit pieces across it (the recipe says 'a small rabbit', so I reserved and froze a couple of the larger joints for use elsewhere, i.e. the saddle and one of the back legs), cover the meat thickly with the remaining savoury rice, and pour over the well-seasoned gravy.
The recipe says "cook gently for about an hour"; but since I didn't attempt to bone my self-butchered rabbit joints, let alone cut the resulting meat into "bite-sized pieces", I decided I'd better casserole it longer and gave it a couple of hours.
When I pulled the rice covering aside to investigate, the joints were tender and beautifully cooked -- no doubt the flavour was improved by being casseroled bone-in, as well. Since I'd reserved the meatiest portions, the helping I got turned out be mostly rice, with a scraping of meat to be extracted from the rabbit pieces (a foreleg and the tail end of the spine, I think), but the rice had absorbed all the flavours and was extremely delicious accompanied by cabbage braised with a little leek. As I said, it's very reminiscent of chicken paella. And you could certainly serve four people on "one small rabbit"...
This one was not frozen when I got it, thus demonstrating that the carcases had indeed frozen solid on the stall in the snow-filled market square!
Since I am no longer suffering from an acute shortage of vegetables I was able to look up some of the various other rabbit recipes in my possession (in fact I have just acquired some charming pre-war recipe booklets which give further assorted methods of cooking rabbit, including a mulligatawny soup which specifies 'leftover remnants of rabbit' as the meat to be used!) I was intrigued by Marguerite Patten's post-war rationing recipe for 'rabbit surprise', but certainly didn't expect the result to be quite as successful as it proved to be; the (very un-English) ginger and hint of hot chilli in the rice make the perfect accompaniment to the slow-casseroled rabbit joints. I think the result is basically a rabbit paella.
You pre-cook the rice and you are supposed to brown the rabbit joints in hot fat in the meantime -- I forgot that part, and it was still very tasty. You need about half a pint of good gravy; I used the last of the stock from the bones of the previous rabbit, added to grated vegetables browned and braised with the minced rabbit offal.
Then you mix the cooked rice with thinly-sliced tomato, fine-chopped onion, ginger and cayenne (I used half a chilli instead, for just a touch of heat), put a layer of rice across the bottom of a greased casserole dish, lay the rabbit pieces across it (the recipe says 'a small rabbit', so I reserved and froze a couple of the larger joints for use elsewhere, i.e. the saddle and one of the back legs), cover the meat thickly with the remaining savoury rice, and pour over the well-seasoned gravy.
The recipe says "cook gently for about an hour"; but since I didn't attempt to bone my self-butchered rabbit joints, let alone cut the resulting meat into "bite-sized pieces", I decided I'd better casserole it longer and gave it a couple of hours.
When I pulled the rice covering aside to investigate, the joints were tender and beautifully cooked -- no doubt the flavour was improved by being casseroled bone-in, as well. Since I'd reserved the meatiest portions, the helping I got turned out be mostly rice, with a scraping of meat to be extracted from the rabbit pieces (a foreleg and the tail end of the spine, I think), but the rice had absorbed all the flavours and was extremely delicious accompanied by cabbage braised with a little leek. As I said, it's very reminiscent of chicken paella. And you could certainly serve four people on "one small rabbit"...
