Only an emergency because there turned out to be considerably less rabbit than there should have been.

I bought the rabbit from Furness Fish and Game at Borough. This was a mistake in itself as the next day I found a Manor Farm stall at Notting Hill market and they sell them for nearly a  pound less! Usually Furness are fine but this time it was a bit different. I got the rabbit to make something similar to this for myself and Goon.

I had told Goon to put the rabbit in to slow braise while I was still in the office. Then I met up with him and his friends briefly at the pub before heading over to cook. He was still out when I got back. I pulled the casserole dish out of the oven. At first I wondered how Goon had managed to fit the rabbit into such a small container. Then I realised. This rabbit must have been a very sad rabbit as it only had two legs.

So quick improvisation was needed. I decided to stick with the idea of a creamy sauce with mustard and mushrooms but added some left-over turkey to make up for the lost rabbit. The result was actually very tasty.

The sauce was made with cream, mustard a bit of white wine, rosemary and thyme. Sliced mushrooms, cooked bacon, turkey and rabbit were added and then the sauce was tossed with tagliatelle.

The meal was good… but just wait until I get back to Borough… someone will get an earfull.

It seems that, to a lot of people nowadays, pigeon is a weird thing to eat. I certainly got a very funny look when MJ enquired about what I’d be cooking yesterday. But during Victorian times and before, this meat was very popular. It has a very intense game flavour and I would even say that it tastes a little bit like liver.

Perhaps this would be a way to introduce squeamish people to that kind of flavour without them being freaked out by eating organs!

Since the flavour of this meat is so gamey, when I decided to make a risotto with it I wanted other strong flavours too. I decided I’d have meaty porcini mushrooms, bacon, rosemary and a fruity Italian red wine.

Actually, the wine wasn’t Italian in the end. It was on the Italian shelf of Tesco’s wine section and half price so I picked it up without paying much attention to it. Yes, I know, I’m a cheapskate student.  I was rather suprised when I got home and found the wine was actually French. Luckily it still was quite fruity, so it turned out to be perfectly good for the risotto.  

Pigeon is one of those meats that tend to dry out quickly and so I cooked it by briefly searing thin slices of breast. Then I kept it warm, away from the hob, whilst I made the risotto and stirred the meat back in at the end.

It tasted delicious but the sad thing about this meal is that I can’t see how to present it well.

Cooked pigeon is kind of a grey-purple colour and the wine made the risotto a reddish brown. ot really an attractive colour combination. It’s a shame as the flavours in this dish are fantastic. Hmm… you can’t really see the pigeon in that picture so I better post this one too.

So, now you can see it is a very dark meat- darker in fact than that photo really lets on. 

Despite the fact that it is in good supply and not that popular, pigeon is still very expensive! Each pigeon breast costs £1 and I think you’d need three to feed an average person. Damn me for being addicted to Borough Market. 

Here is the Wood Pigeon and Red Wine Risotto with Porcini Mushrooms and Bacon recipe. 

Ever since seeing the stuffed burgers that  Amanda made on What We’re Eating, I’ve been wanting to have a go myself. I’m not usually a burger person (I’m more taken by fried chicken ) but making stuffed ones looked fun. I also quite fancied the idea of home made chips.

Last night was supposed to be the first time I cooked in my new flat but as usual things didn’t go to plan. So I ended up back at Latymer Court to make my burgers with goon there to help. For some reason no one objected to me trying some deep frying either.

So we started with the burgers. A week or two ago I’d found packs of venison mince at Borough and I’d picked them up with this project in mind. The mince got mixed with some finely chopped fried onion and garlic plus a tablespoon of minced rosemary leaves. I added some beaten egg for binding and then made them into thin patties which I topped with the burger stuffing.

A few slices of brie and a good dollop of cranberry sauce went on. Then I covered these with the rest of the mince to make some massive burgers.

While the burgers were in the oven, we dealt with the chips. I’d already got goon to chop the potatoes. I parboiled them for 5 minutes in salty water, drained them thoroughly and then dropped 5 or 6 at a time into hot vegetable oil.

As the chips turned golden brown I fished them out of the pan with a slotted spoon. I tasted one and was very impressed by its texture. It was really crispy on the outside but soft and floury inside. This was absolutely perfect but for some reason they didn’t seem to have as much flavour as I expected. I dusted them with flour, black pepper and a touch of cayenne but for some reason that didn’t help either. I wondered whether the oil was to blame. 

Soon the chips were done and the burgers came out of the oven. There had been a bit of leakage from one but nothing too serious. I topped them with some extra brie and let that melt. We would have put them in buns but the burgers were too big to fit!

As goon poured the wine I had a nibble on a rocket leaf from our salad. It was strangely bland, not like rocket. Then it dawned on me what had happened. The cold that had been bothering me all day had bunged up my nose to the extent I couldn’t taste ANYTHING at all. That’s why the chips seemed to have no flavour. My suspicions were confirmed when I tried the wine. Bland chianti? Unlikely.

So I have very little idea of what the burger tasted like. According to the goon the flavour was milder than normal venison but still a bit gamey and the cranberry came through really well. The brie added creaminess and a mild flavour. Apparently my malfuntioning tastebuds causd me to overseason the chips a bit but they were still damn good. I think the brie stuffing worked pretty well although it leaked a little.

For ten minutes before we ate I tried everything possible to decongest my nose, but nothing worked. We tried mustard, chilli powder and even inhaling ouzo! I’m going to have to make these again just so I can find out what they really taste like.

Until recently I didn't even know there was such a thing as a farmed rabbit. The idea seemed a bit silly to me. Why farm the buggers when they're all over the countryside and in no danger of becoming extinct any time soon? Also, at £10 each, they are very expensive compared to their £3.50 wild counterparts, even though they are a bit bigger.Still, some people kept telling me that farmed rabbit was far easier to cook because the flesh was so tender. The idea of being able to cook bunny in one hour sounded good compared to the three hour slow-braise I usually have to use.    

So last night I tried out farmed rabbit with a walnut and garlic sauce.

This thing apparently came from France and, like the last French rabbit I encountered, still had it's head attached. I still don't understand why they do that. Surely there's no use for rabbit head!?

I didn't have time to have the bunny jointed when I bought it and I know from experience that I'm far too weak to do it myself in any sensible timescale. So I had Sir Millar round for dinner and got him to do it. After all, that rabbit would easily feed 2 people. 

It turned out that Andy had a rather morbid fascination with the rabbit carcass and even took pictures of it. Computer scientists are freaks!  DO NOT LOOK IF YOU'RE AT ALL SQUEAMISH! This is the least worrying one of them. There's another closeup of the rabbits head which is too disturbing to post. Somehow that rabbit is looking coquettishly at the camera!

 Fortunately I managed to get the head away from Andy and into the bin before any of the girlies in my flat saw it.

Once it was in bits, the rabbit was squeezed into a casserole dish. I had to get rid of the ribcage because it wouln't fit. I then added chopped garlic, rosemary, thyme and parsley and covered it with some left over chenin blanc topped up with chicken stock. I then baked it for 50 minutes at 200 C. 

It turned out that the rabbit flesh was indeed very tender and came off the bone easily. The only problem was it didn't taste like rabbit.It tasted like chicken. The upside to this was that it had taken on the flavour of the wine and herbs very well, but I was a little disappointed that the usual game flavour wasn't there.

Also, this rabbit was a little too big for my purposes (even though it was the smallest in the shop and I got it on discount ). A wild rabbit will feed 2 hungry people. A farmed rabbit will feed 3-4. I can't see myself wanting to cook rabbit for more than two people anytime soon so I'd just end up with leftovers.

The verdict: Wild rabbit wins in my opinion.

The idea fot the walnut and garlic sauce came from this website. Unfortunately it seems to go down on a regular basis, and frequently when I want to use it. It chose to break yesterday just before I started cooking, so the sauce was entirely improvised. It actually turned out very good. It was very garlicky and creamy and I put in lots of chopped parsley. The rabbit was served with wild rice and peas. Here is the full recipe for Rabbit with Walnut and Garlic Sauce.

No more tough chewy bunnies for me!

I started buying and cooking rabbit a couple of years ago but always had a bit of trouble with it. It was fine in little pieces, say in a rabbit supreme or in a paella, but rabbit joints would turn out very dry. I think I’ve discovered why.

I use lots of internet recipes and they will tell you to cook rabbit in liquid for about 40 minutes on gas mark 4. THEY ARE LYING!!! Long slow cooking is much better for rabbit joints. I tried it last night . I made rabbit with a dijon mustard sauce and mashed potato.

I cooked the rabbit in liquid as usual but this time I had the oven at about 150 C (just below gas mark 3) and cooked it for two and a half hours.  When I came to eat it, the meat came off the bones easily.

The mustard sauce is pretty good too. I’m usually a bit ambivalent about rabbit. It’s got an interesting flavour but I prefer most other game meats. This sauce, however, complemented it well and I think I’ll carry on making sauces with more bite to go with rabbit. It was lovely mixed up with the mash too. Here’s the recipe.

This happened in true “Ready Steady Cook” style last Sunday. There was a French rabbit in the freezer, chorizo in the fridge, a big pan and not a lot of space anywhere. Paella was the obvious choice. Fortunately, it turned out to be a tasty choice too, although its construction turned out to be quite stressful.

It should have happened like THIS. But that would be far too easy.

Problem number 1: No Paella rice. Solution - substitute Japanese sushi rice and believe it or not… it worked!

Problem number 2: No red pepper.  Solution- stir in  some red pepper soup and put in fresh chopped tomato for colour.

Problem number 3: No herbs. No solution to this one. I just prayed there’d be enough herbiness in the stock to make up for it.

Problem number 4: The chorizo was covered in a shrink wrap plastic that I mistook for the chorizo skin. I’d added half the chorizo before I noticed and spent a while picking plastic out of the pan.

Problem number 5: The rabbit was looking at me funny. No - not really a problem but why leave the head on the rabbit when packing it? It’s pretty useless. Isn’t that weird? Guess it isn’t in France. Also we had a freak rabbit with a disturbingly big liver.

After all that we eventually had a paella that was very nice apart from the occasional bit of chorizo plastic floating about. We paired it with a nice Rioja and some dolmades we found in the freezer.