Rabbit Brabant Style- a Dutch disaster...

Today I had a realisation- when it comes to Dutch cooking, my mother might be right.

She maintains that the majority of Dutch food that she has experienced in her time is grey. Her comments are not to be discounted, after all she has been married to my expat Dutch dad for 30+ years- so she oughtta know right?

What she means is that it seems to end up smothered in a grey-ish sauce comprised mostly of butter and flour and that as a result it tends to look (and in some cases taste) the same.

I've been busily trying to defy her. Claiming that with culinary contributions that include Edam cheese, pickled herring (rollmop) and poffertjes (tiny little fluffy pancakes), there has to be more to this cuisine than meets the eye?

So I spent the weekend on another Dutch cooking mission- armed with a 1970's copy of 'Dutch & Belgian Cooking' from Bay Books Round the world cooking library.

Perhaps the book itself was a bad choice- but it seems to be one of so few Dutch cook books out there written in English.

I have to say that my first dish was less than pleasing to the eye. Sad considering that the ingredients were all good. So far I'm yet to find anything outstanding beyond canapes. *Sigh* I'm including the recipe here more as a documentation rather than as a recipe that I suggest you try. After all, rabbit and prunes sounds like such a good idea... it's so easy to see just how I got sucked in! But in the end, the grey sauce just let me down.

Rabbit Brabant Style:

Ingredients:

• 1 young rabbit- jointed
• 1 medium onion diced
• 1 tsp dried thyme leaves
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cup wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• pinch salt
• black pepper (freshly cracked) to taste
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 tblspn butter
• 250 grams prunes (soaked overnight in water)
• 1 tblspn brown sugar
• 1/2 cup beer
• 2 tblspn flour

Method:

Place the rabbit pieces in a shallow dish. Combine the onion, thyme, bay, vinegar and water and pour over the rabbit. Cover the pan tightly with foil or plastic and marinate over night in the fridge.

Remove rabbit from the marinade and dry thoroughly, strain and reserve marinade. Season flour with salt and pepper and coat the rabbit evenly.

Heat the butter in a large frypan with a fitted lid. Brown the rabbit on all sides over high heat until golden. Add the strained marinade mixture to the pan. Lower the heat, cover the pan and simmer for 30mins. Then add the drained prunes, sprinkle over brown sugar and simmer for a further 15mins.

Combine the beer and flour, mixing until smooth. Remove rabbit from the pan to a warmed serving dish, add the beer mixture to the sauce stirring continuously until the sauce has thickened.

Distribute the prunes around the rabbit and then pour the source over to serve.

It's at this point that I wonder why I poured the sauce over at all. Maybe it would have been better reserved for adding at the table to each individual plate. The dish looked okay until I poured it on. But the sauce just looked like a lovely beige clag... yum.

Patience and I stared at the final dish. He even dared to taste it and concluded that it didn't taste too bad... maybe a touch vinegary.

But the fact remained that the finished product was such a congealed mess on the plate that I simply had to call my mother (with tears of laughter streaming down my cheeks) to describe what was in front of me: "Maybe you were right." *Gasp-giggle-gasp* "... it looks like the dog threw-up all over my perfectly good rabbit and prunes!" *squeals of laughter* - my mother paused for breath; "well at least it's more beige than grey darling... well done!"

Note: not such a great Dutch dish... ahhh well, the search continues- onto the next one! And as Patience pointed out, it all comes down to that sauce, but it could have something to do with the era the cookbook is from.

Run rabbit, run!

Finally turned my hand to cooking a whole rabbit last night- and was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. 

It never ceases to amaze me how many people fail to ask their butcher for advice when they pick up a new cut of meat. These guys deal with meat for their living- you gotta think that maybe, just maybe this will translate into knowing a hellava lot about the stuff. 

When I bought my little rabbit from the South Melbourne Markets I just had to ask for some tips- and here's what I got. Rabbits have very little fat on them (why are we not eating more of them I ask myself), so your best bet is to add a little. Wrap them in bacon for instance and then stew with vegies and stock. So that's just what I did.

After consulting my Cook's Companion for further tips (thanks Stephanie), I came up with the following- easy, cheap and just a little bit different for a cold winters night. This has to be one of the easiest hearty meals I've put together for a while- so easy in fact that I'll put it on standby for unexpected dinner guests next. You just need to know where to get the rabbit, and to my surprise, the local IGA stocks it. Jane 1/Rabbits 0!

Rabbit Stew:

Ingredients-

• 1 whole rabbit, jointed into 8 pieces (legs, ribs, hind quarters etc)
  
• Bacon rashers (cheap fatty cuts are best for this)
  
• 5 potatoes
• 4 tomaotos
  
• 1 onion
  
• 2 cloves garlic- smashed
• 2 sticks of celery
  
• 1 carrot
  
• 1 leek, white part only
  
• 4 large field mushrooms (reserve some for garnish)
  
• Juice of half a lemon and some rind for garnish
  
• parsely
  
• 1 cup of red wine
  
• 1L stock (chicken, vegie or anything you like)
• olive oil
  
• 1 tin of tomatoes
  
• salt/pepper to season

Method

It's a no brainer this one- heat the olive oil in a large fry-pan, dice one rasher of bacon and brown it. Then put it to one side. Sear the rabbit pieces in the hot pan until they are a little browned. Remove fro

m the pan and wrap in the remaining bacon rashers.

Chop all your vegies to a nice hearty consistency. In a large casserole dish make a bed of the chopped vegetables, then place the rabbit/bacon pieces on top. Pour in the stock, red wine, tinned toms and any seasoning you wish to add.

Cover and cook in a 200degC oven for a little over an hour, or until the rabbit is done and the broth is a thick soup.

Serve in large bowls with plenty of the broth. Garnish with mushroom, parsley and lemon rind. Add a splash of lemon juice to each dish just before serving.  Crusty sourdough bread is a must to soak up the juices.

Note: I am aware that the top picture has some chestnuts in it- but we decided against using them at the last minute, so please ignore this. But they do look pretty with the other ingredients.