Over the last few years when travelling in Tuscany I have been tempted on a few occasions to buy and cook a rabbit, Italian style.  Only having the Mini BGE with us I have been reluctant, as casseroling on a 10 inch Kamado never seemed quite possible  (I have not found a casserole dish small enough to fit – yet!!)!  As we can’t travel to Tuscany at the moment, it does mean we have access to a greater range of BGEs at home.  All we needed therefore was the rabbit and a recipe or 2 to play with!!  Today we had both – so here we go!

The recipe is based on one of Anna Del Conte’s recipes from her classic book The Gastronomy of Italy (a birthday present for my last ‘significant’ birthday). Del Conte’s recipe was itself based on a classic from La Cucina d’Ora – a ‘tome and a half’ with more than 1500 classic regional recipes, published in corporation with the Accademia Italiana della Cucina.  A variation of the recipe also appears in ‘La Cuchina – The regional cooking of Italy’ in the section from Piedmont in the Northwest of Italy (but without the anchovies!).

The BGE was set up for direct cooking and allowed to stabilise at around 180C.  Whilst waiting we portioned the rabbit into the 4 limbs – the loin was also portioned into 4 pieces (there are lots of You Tube videos demonstrating this, or you can ask your butcher).

In many ways it would be easier to cook this dish in the large BGE as you could have 2 pans on the heat at the same time.  Despite this we elected to cook on the MiniMax just to see how it would go.  If you can cook it on a small BGE, you can always cook it in a larger one!

Half the butter and a similar volume of olive oil was added with the rosemary.  The hot oil quickly absorbs the essential oils from the rosemary.
The Bay leaf and the rabbit pieces were added and the rabbit browned on all sides.  When all were nicely brown add the stock and cook for around 20 minutes.  The casserole was moved from the BGE,  the cooking continuing with the stored heat from the pan.

A second pan was put in the MiniMax to heat up.  The remaining butter and a similar volume of olive oil was added to the pan with the anchovy fillets.  The anchovies quickly become a mush which thickens the oil. This is just the time to add the garlic and the pepper strips.  The original recipe uses yellow peppers – but we had red ones, and I think they look great!  They were seasoned with pepper, but not salt as the anchovies were already salty.  The peppers were cooked for around 5 minutes then the vinegar was added and stirred through.  They were then cooked for a further 10 minutes until they softened a little, stirring regularly.

The pepper mixture was added to the casserole with the rabbit and the casserole was returned to the BGE.  The air vents were shut back to allow the temperature to fall a little.  The dish was cooked for another 30 minutes turning the pieces 2 or three times in this period.  (You could probably reduce this to around 20 minutes with a farmed rabbit).

All that was left to do was to plate up. We sat the rabbit on a small piece of sourdough to absorb the rich sauce and served with steamed broccoli.  We served one large hind leg and a piece of loin each and saved the rest for a second rabbit dish which we will publish soon.

…………………………………. do give it a go!

Footnote: Most of today’s chicken recipes started their lives as rabbit recipes – so in a ‘turn about’ this recipe would work well with chicken instead of rabbit!!

A whole rabbit is enough for 4 people – but as there are just 2 of us we used the second part of this casseroles the basis of another simple dish – link here

If cooking during the pandemic has taught me anything it has to be about simple innovation using ingredients you have to hand. Similarly, it is about using one dish/recipe as the basis for another similar, but distinctively different dish.

This dish is a good example of that.  The primary recipe (here) used the 2 rear legs and a little of the rabbit loin for the main dish for 2 people. This left some fantastic sauce, and some great cooked peppers, and a smaller portion of the rabbit.  Obviously we could have just eaten it again as a slightly less opulent dish.  Instead we gave it a little (frugal) twist.  This made it go further, but more importantly gave it a different character and the feeling of a ‘new dish’!  The idea was very simple; bring the meat and the sauce up to serving temperature, loosen the sauce slightly with a little stock, and then cook some gnocchi in the sauce.

And really it was as simple as that. It had been a lovely afternoon and we had been making stock from the rabbit carcass on the Big Green Egg.  The rabbit and sauce still in its original casserole from 2 days earlier was put on the EGG and allowed to thoroughly warm through.  A good ladleful of the rabbit stock was added and stirred through the sauce.  The pan had been warming for a good 20 minutes and we had tested that the meat was above the minimal safe core temperature for reheated food (The minimum legally accepted temperature for reheating of food is 75C in England and Wales and 82C in Scotland).   The gnocchi was added and stirred into the sauce and allowed to cook.  Our gnocchi on this occasion were not home made. They normally require around 3 minutes cooking in boiling water – but when cooked in a sauce like this I tend to leave them a little longer.  They certainly come to no harm and contribute a little to the thickening of the sauce.

All that was then left to do was to plate up with our chosen accompaniments.

…………….. on this occasion we served the dish with spiced cabbage and purple and green sprouting broccoli.  The gnocchi gave a lovely rich oppulence to an already fantastic tasting sauce and complimented the rest of the dish perfectly!

……………….. do give it a go!

This is really a footnote to the recipe “Slow cooked rabbit with boozy apricots”.   Slow cooked meat dishes with a rich sauce are often served in the same way that the Tuscans serve their rich soups, (more…)

Rabbit has been a European staple for certainly the last 3000 years and was introduced into Britain by the Romans in the first century AD under the Emperor Claudius.  Its popularity throughout Europe has remained strong but in the latter half of the last century became much less common in Britain.  This is a real shame as it is an excellent protein source and a reasonably versatile meat.  On the whole it should be cooked either very quickly or very slowly – when it can be fantastic – cooked somewhere between these extremes and it tends to be tough, dry, or both!

The way we have cooked it here is a slight variation on Jackie’s classic rabbit with prunes recipe which we have enjoyed together for the last 40 years or so!  This particular recipe is cooked with ‘boozy apricots’ (more…)