These are words that don’t go together for a very good reason, “Rabbit” and “Chili”. I should have respected that. I didn’t even want to take a picture.
I basically just wanted to use up my dried chipotle chilies that I dragged all the way home from Montreal. These are all the things I did wrong:
1. Chopped the rabbits through the bone. The original recipe called for pork steak cut into 1″ pieces. It was impossible to take the rabbit flesh off the bone anyway, but the broken bones kind of splintered and I ended up with pieces of bone in the chili. Very, very not good.
2. There was really not a lot of meat on the rabbits in the first place, and what was there got over-cooked since I’d had to sear the meat first. There wasn’t much there to sear so the meat cooked through too quickly and then you can’t really make it tender again, no matter how long you stick it in the slow-cooker.
3. I didn’t have any tomatillos. Instead I added 4 cups of diced onion and a handful of chopped cherry tomatoes instead of 3 cups onion and 2 cups tomatillos. I figured tomatillo is bland anyway, and especially in Newfoundland there’s no way you’ll get fresh ones anyway.
4. For some reason my dried chilies didn’t re-constitute well. I soaked them for an hour in boiling water and put a plate down on top of them so they were completely covered. Some of them softened and some just really didn’t. Then in the chili they still didn’t soften. I couldn’t chop them well after they’d soaked and I ended up with jerky-like pieces of chili in the final product.
5. The broth is delicious, but it’s just broth where as it should be thick and chili-like. It was really nicely spicy and a little sweet and smokey from the chipotles, but no, it still wasn’t great because you had to pick through all the bones.
I won’t even give this recipe because no one should make it. If some day I decide to make it with pork (don’t hold your breath), I will give the recipe. I will also give proper instructions on soaking chilies. Just know that I often mess up, but rarely the result is this poor. In the grand scheme of kitchen potential disasters this really wasn’t that bad. Maybe I’ll just stick to lychee frozen yogurt from now on…to be continued.
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