Funny, none of my recipe books have a recipe for rabbit. Or wabbit…Not even, ironically, my Looney Spoons Cookbook. So I figured it’s a white meat, but maybe closer to veal than chicken and looked for appropriate recipes. Basically I had red wine left over so I looked for a recipe that involved braising the meat in wine, to practice up for Osso Buco.
What I came up with was:
2 kg rabbit (what I had bought had been skinned and left on the bones. It’s funny, you don’t usually see a whole chicken sold with the skin removed. At least it had no ears. I couldn’t have cooked it if it had ears)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
2 large onions
2 carrots
10 cloves of garlic (peeled but not chopped)
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp cumin seed (the original recipe called for 2 tbsp ground cumin, but I ran out and figured since it would be braised that the whole spices would work just as well, if not better)
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 28 oz can of plum tomatoes
1 c. red wine
2 tbsp. chopped cilantro, to garnish (or parsley)
I love the basic recipe of heating oil in a large pot or skillet, searing the meat, removing it, and cooking onions and other vegetables in the meat’s juices. Then deglazing, like gravy, with the red wine, adding a broth (in this case tomatoes), and pouring the whole thing over the seared meat. The searing keeps the juices in the meat as it braises, and it’s so practical to sauté the vegetables in the meat’s own juices. So simple.
So I followed this for the rabbit. All I did was season with salt and pepper and seared it on medium-high heat turning it every 4-5 minutes so all the sides browned. Then I stuck it in the slow-cooker to wait for the sauce. The beauty of the slow cooker is you can have the same effect of braising the meat for a few hours in the oven, but you don’t need to be in the house waiting for it to cook, checking it, basting it, wishing you were allowed to leave. And it cooks for longer at a lower temperature, giving you generally more tender meat. More delicious with less effort. Yes, I am a Grandmother, but if you smelled the rabbit in the slow-cooker all day (when you pop back into the house, since you are allowed to leave), you might be okay with that too…
Then I added the sliced onions and whole garlic cloves, reducing the heat to medium and cooking until the onions were translucent. I added the cumin and oregano for a few minutes and then poured over the cup of wine (dry is better…mine was a bit fruity and sweet). I added the tomatoes with their juices and brought the mixture to a boil, breaking up the tomatoes with my spatula. Finally, I poured the whole contents of the skillet over top of the rabbit in the slow-cooker (It fit a little better than the lobster had in the soup pot…) and set the heat to high for 6 hours. I think this was overkill, but I really didn’t know how long to cook it for, and if you undercook it in the slow-cooker, you’re waiting upwards of an hour for it to finish. I didn’t have the time luxury of cooking it on low, so I crossed my fingers and hoped my having seared the meat would save me.
6 hours later I got home and the lovely little slow-cooker had turned itself to the “keep warm” setting, giving me time to make the mashed potatoes and swiss chard. I figured I should just make all the potatoes I had left, about 2 1/2 lbs, and a mix of colours and varieties (blue, yellow, and white, new, etc.). I decided to keep the skins on because I don’t like textureless mashed potatoes. This took a bit more time, though, to scrub the potatoes instead of peeling them. After the scrubbing and chopping into small pieces (they’ll cook faster when they’re smaller and evenly-sized) I threw them in a steamer. 20 minutes later I took put them in a big bowl with a bit of the steaming liquid and threw the swiss chard into the steamer to wilt while I mashed the potatoes. I actually turn the heat off on the stove now and just let the chard steam with the heat that’s left in the pot. I’m not a good masher, so I knew they’d have ample time to wilt while I worked.
It doesn’t help that I don’t have a masher. I have a slotted metal spoon…I also have no patience because the potatoes didn’t have to be perfect. In fact I didn’t even season them with salt, pepper, garlic, dijon or butter because the sauce from the rabbit was going to flavour it, and the whole garlic cloves were going to explode into it. So I mashed a bit (hence calling it “smashed potatoes” in the title of the post, not “mashed”).
So I scooped a bunch of the smashed potatoes out onto a plate, made a well in the middle and put a piece of the rabbit on top, pouring some of the sauce, onions and tomatoes over it all. The chard got to decorate the side of the plate. The rabbit had basically fallen away from the bone into my serving spoon. There was no knife involved. It wasn’t like a pulled rabbit; it stayed intact, but the meat wasn’t tough or dry like a Sunday roast beef. Thank God for the slow-cooker. The meat was…well, more flavourful than chicken. It’s a nice substitute. I wasn’t won over by the tomato and wine sauce. It was a bit bland, but the garlic cloves were a brilliant idea on the recipe’s part, because without them the potatoes would have tasted like nothing. Even with a small glass of wine, the meat wasn’t incredibly flavourful, but it was satisfying and good and home made, and much better than a lot of restaurants. This would definitely be good for a family Easter dinner. Just maybe add a little lemon juice when you add the tomatoes, and a bit more wine to deglaze. Maybe also a dryer wine. Or a dry white, since it is white meat. Happy hunting.
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