Whisk Wednesdays—Civet de Lapin à la Française (Rabbit Stew with Red Wine)

"The first step in making rabbit stew is catching the rabbit."
— Isaac Asimov

I tasted rabbit for the first time on a restaurant patio in Greece not far from Olympia. It was memorable not only because of the surroundings but also because it was ... a rabbit. I was a little squeamish about making it myself and wouldn't have wanted to break down my lapin from scratch, so I pretended it was chicken and moved past the whole idea of cooking and eating someone's pet.

"Real cooks have hard hearts."
— Marjorie Leet Ford

Sometime last year, I read Thomas Keller's account of "The Importance of Rabbits" in The French Laundry Cookbook. Keller asked his rabbit supplier to show him how to prepare a rabbit, and his first solo attempt at killing, skinning and eviscerating a rabbit was horrific. "It was a simple lesson," he says after the event, which taught him the importance of each animal's life. From then on, he would not waste any part of the animal.

"I knew that to waste anything was about as close to sin as a chef gets." — Thomas Keller, The French Laundry Cookbook

How to Have Hare in Your Stew
After cutting the rabbit up into pieces, it is marinated overnight in red wine and aromatics. Following this marinating stage, the rabbit is removed (at which time you marvel at its purple complexion), dried and browned in butter. Next, the vegetables from the marinade are strained out, added to the sauté pan and sprinkled with flour. This mixture is cooked for a bit before adding the rest of the marinade ingredients. All is brought to a boil and simmered for 2 minutes before putting in a hot 425°F oven for about 45 minutes.

While the rabbit is stewing in the oven, get out all the pots and pans you own! One is for boiling the potatoes until tender. Another is for glazing the pearl onions (or shallots in my case). Finally, a third pan is for crisping the bacon before sautéing the mushrooms. These accessories to the rabbit are delicious on their own. I ended up using cinnamon cap mushrooms that I had purchased at the Ottawa Farmers' Market on the weekend.

After the rabbit is cooked, remove the pieces and set aside while preparing the sauce. Strain the liquid, bring it to a boil and reduce it for a few minutes. Add the rabbit along with the onions, bacon and mushrooms and simmer to marry the flavors for about 5 minutes. Interestingly, the sauce is sometimes thickened with the animal's blood! Since I didn't have any leftover blood in my refrigerator (unlike Ms. Glaze at culinary school) I just let it simmer to reduce and thicken without any coagulating agents.

While the sauce simmers, I toasted the buttered bread for croutons. Finally, it is served with a garnish of the ever common parsley.

Recipe

Serves 6

3¾-pound rabbit

For the Marinade:
1 medium carrot, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 whole cloves
20 peppercorns
1 Bouquet Garni
4 cups dry red wine
3 tablespoons cognac
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

For the Stew:
7 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 pounds waxy potatoes (red or white)
36 pearl onions
1 tablespoon sugar
5 ounces slab bacon, sliced ¼ inch thick
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
½ pound button or large, quartered mushrooms, trimmed, rinsed and dried

For the Croutons:
3 slices firm white bread, crusts removed
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
You can find the recipe for Civet de Lapin à la Française (Rabbit Stew with Red Wine) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home or here. To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Serve with a rich red wine either from Burgundy or the Côtes du Rhône.

Tasting Notes
It has been several years since I tasted rabbit, and I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. It was moist and tender, definitely not gamey. It doesn't taste like chicken or pork. It has the meatiness of something in the middle, although the meat on the bone was a portion size fit for a petite person watching her girlish figure. Plus it's lean. In fact, it's leaner than beef, pork, or chicken. The rich, savory, slightly salty sauce and the mushroom-onion-bacon medley were the stars on the plate. And if you don't want to pull a rabbit out of your pot, use chicken.

Links
• Look and Taste: How To Skin A Rabbit (Warning: This video may be difficult for some viewers to watch.)
• On a Lighter Note: Rabbit Stew Cartoons
• Photo of Civet de Lapin à la Française (Rabbit Stew with Red Wine) from Dave, a Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Student who blogs

Next Class
• Soufflé au Comté (Cheese Soufflé) pages 82-83

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $1,384.52 + $18.15 (rabbit) + $22.98 (other ingredients) = $1,425.65
($6.85 per serving)

Butter used so far: 12 pounds, 20.5 tablespoons

. . . . . . . . . .

::Whisk Wednesdays::
We're cooking our way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, we try to find a suitable substitution. Find out more here.

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