A great tasting slow cooked, braised dish with great rounded flavour, taste and looks superb! Use wild whole rabbit portioned or just the legs & shoulders if using farmed.
Serves: 4
Ingredients
- 500ml light olive oil
- 2 heads garlic, broken into individual cloves, papery skin left on, 4 cloves peeled and lightly crushed
- 2 sprigs fresh thyme
- 400g smoked bacon or pancetta slabs, cut into soldier shapes 25mm long x 15mm wide
- 2 rabbits, chopped into legs, saddles and shoulder portions, keeping all on the bone
- Plain flour for dredging, seasoned with salt and fresh ground black pepper
- 1 banana shallot, 1 medium carrot and 2 sticks of celery all chopped to small dice
- 400ml good chicken stock
- 200ml good dry white wine
- Spices: 5 tsp coriander seeds - 3tsp lightly crushed, 2 tsp fine ground - two pinches saffron threads, about 15 stigma per pinch
- 150g each of celeriac, carrots and parsnip, peeled and chopped to chunky dice
- 300g Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and chopped to even chunks
- 1 Bramley apple, cored, chopped to chunky dice
- 75g salted best butter
- 2 banana shallots, finely diced
- 2 ripe tomatoes, peeled, deseeded and finely diced
- Good handful of curly parsley, chopped and coriander plushes, (leaves on short trimmed stalks)
Method
- Set your oven to 160ºc, Gas mark 3
- In a casserole, heat the oil until just warm, drop in the unpeeled garlic cloves and thyme then pop in the bacon, cook very, very gently until soft and tender, about 20 to 30minutes. Remove and reserve the bacon and garlic. Discard the thyme. Put the oil aside for later.
- Place all the rabbit portions on a plate and dredge in a little of the seasoned flour.
- Take a fry pan, add two tblsp of the confit oil and gently sauté the rabbit pieces in batches until they’re just lightly coloured, then place them in a shallow roasting dish just big enough to hold the pieces comfortably.
- Using the same fry pan fry the shallot, carrot and celery dice on a medium high heat until they’re just coloured, then add them to the roasting tray.
- Pour in 200ml chicken stock, the dry white wine, add the 4 peeled garlic cloves, 3tsp of the crushed coriander seed and a good pinch of saffron.
- Cover the roasting dish with foil tightly, pop in the oven and gently bake for 75-90 minutes, taking out the saddles first, then the shoulders and finally the legs to ensure they all cook evenly, remove to a plate. Set aside and allow to cool.
- Strain the cooking juices through a fine sieve into a large saucepan, gently pressing the vegetables in the sieve to make sure all juices are captured, then discard the cooked vegetables.
- Pop the pan on a medium heat, bring to a gentle bubble, add the chunky dice vegetables and par-cook until just yielding when skewed with a sharp knife, add 50g butter, stir through.
- Strain the vegetables and reserve them, retain the buttery juices pouring them into a medium sauce pan.
- Place the rabbit on a tray in a medium hot oven to just gently re-heat it, but don’t cook it.
- Gently fry the vegetables, Bramley chunks, confit bacon and garlic cloves in a little more of the reserved “confit oil” and a knob of butter so beautifully glazed and golden, rectify the seasoning, remove from the pan with slotted spoon onto absorbent paper
- Place the rabbit pieces on a heated charger then the vegetables, bacon, garlic arranged with finesse, coriander ‘plushes’ on top of the dish
- Take the medium saucepan, add the very finely chopped banana shallots, the remaining 200ml of chicken stock, the second pinch of saffron and the 2 tsp fine ground coriander seed, pop onto a medium heat, bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 4 to 5 minutes so the shallots retain a little bite, then add a little of the remaining cold butter so the sauce just thickens.
- Finally, add the diced tomato concasse to the shallot sauce, put the finely chopped curly parsley, pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables...Enjoy!
