Rabbit with prunes and nuts

Another great rabbit recipe, this time from the north east coast of Spain. I cooked this in two stages. Simmering the rabbit slowly helped the meat to fall from the bone. Thank you to the supplier of rabbit. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 rabbit, jointed
  • 6 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • 1 large peeled tomatos, finely chopped
  • salt and pepper
  • a pinch of dried thyme
  • 1 bayleaf
  • a glass of red wine
  •  12 ready-to-eat prunes (or soaked prunes)
  • a handful of pine nuts
  • a quarter of a lemon
  • 12 blanched almonds
  •  a large clove of garlic
  • 3 peppercorns
  • 1 tsp seasalt

METHOD:

  • Fry the rabbit in the olive oil, browning them. Set the rabbit aside until later
  • Simmer the finely chopped onion in the same pan, for around ten minutes.
  • Season with salt and pepper and add the chopped tomatoes. Cook slowly for half an hour, crushing the tomatoes to make a thick sauce
  • Add the rabbit back to the pain with thyme, the bayleaf and cover. Cook in a slow oven, around 140C for an hour and a half. Add the glass of red wine to keep the dish moist, about an hour into the cooking. If you are going to do this in two stages, you can pause here and chill until you are ready to finish the dish. 
  • Meanwhile, simmer the prunes in just enough water to cover, along with the pine nuts and the lemon. This should take half an hour.
  • Chop the almonds, and put them in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle, with the salt, and then add the peppercorns, and finally grind in the garlic.
  • Add the almond paste to the stew, stir in and cook for another fifteen minutes. Then, add the stewed prunes and stir well. 

We had this with new potatoes. Any other potato dish would be fine, as well as a small salad or green vegetables. 

Pot roast lamb with beans and chorizo

We made this using black-eyed beans and a leg of lamb from a Hebridean sheep from Grimsay. It was delicious. I made it the night before, up to the point of putting it in the oven, but for various reasons, didn’t finish cooking it until tonight. The flavour is fantastic.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 can of cannellini beans, or similar beans, or 300g dried beans, soaked overnight in cold water.
  • Olive oil
  • 2 medium onions, chopped
  • 6 cloves of garlic
  • ¼ tsp crushed hot dried chillies
  • 4-6 fresh bay leaves
  • 1.5kg of lamb or mutton. (The original recipe says this should be boned, but I don’t know how to do that. 
  • 250g cooking chorizo, skinned and cut into thick slices
  • 2 small sprigs rosemary, broken into small clusters of leaves, or 2 tsp dried rosemary
  • 1½ tsp sweet smoked paprika
  • ½ tsp ground cumin
  • 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • salt and pepper
  • A pinch of sugar or a teaspoon of date syrup.

METHOD:

  • First of all, cook the beans as follows. The method is the same whether the beans are tinned or dried, but the tinned beans don’t need to be cooked as long. 
  • Drain the beans
  • Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large pan, and add one of the chopped onions, two of the cloves of garlic, crushed, as well as the crushed chillies and the bayleaves. Stir well and cook over a low heat for ten minutes. 
  • Add the beans and 1 can-ful of water. Bring to a simmer until heated through. If you are using dried beans, add 750ml water, and simmer for 45 minutes. 
  • While the beans are cooking, heat another 2 tablespoons of oil in a large casserole dish, big enough for the lamb. Fry the chorizo until lightly toasted on all sides and set aside. Brown the lamb on all sides and remove from the pan. 
  • Once the lamb is cool, poke holes in it with a knife and jam wedges of garlic into the holes. If you are using fresh rosemary, add sprigs to the holes as well. Season the lamb with salt and pepper. 
  • Add more oil to the casserole dish, if required, and fry the second onion, the last two cloves of garlic, crushed, and stir in the paprika and cumin. When the onion is nicely cooked, add the tomatoes, thyme, and dried rosemary, and bring the mixture to a simmer. I usually cook tinned tomatoes for around 20 minutes to make sure there is no tinny taste. 
  • Add the bean mixture and browned chorizo to the casserole dish, stir and check the flavour. Season with salt, pepper and possibly a pinch of sugar. 
  • Put the lamb on the top of the tomato and bean mixture, and cover the dish with a close-fitting lid. 
  • At this stage, we paused, and finished the cooking the next day, 
  • Put the lamb into a hot oven, 190C, and cook for 2 hours. Uncover for the last half an hour. 

To serve, I took the lamb out of the dish and sliced it. I also simmered the bean and tomato mixture on the hob to thicken it slightly 

We ate this with the slices of lamb on top of the tomato and bean stew, a glass of red wine, and some flat breads and a green salad.

Rabbit and chorizo stew

If you need a tasty dish for rabbit, look no further. I found it useful to have a mouli for the sauce. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 3 tbsp olive oil for frying
  • Approx 200g raw chorizo sausages
  • 1 rabbit, jointed
  • 200g cherry tomatoes, or home grown tomatoes
  • 4 colves of garlic
  • 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, 1/2 tsp hot paprika
  • 2 pointed red peppers, halved and grilled to char the skin
  • 200 ml light stock (chicken, vegetable or rabbit)
  • 2 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

METHOD:

  • In a large frying pan with a lid, heat the olive oil to a low/moderate heat. Fry the chorizo until the fat runs. Remove it from the pan, and set aside.
  • Season the rabbit with salt and pepper, and fry until browned on all sides, around 5 minutes
  • Put the tomatoes, garlic and paprika in a blender and blitz. Then put the mixture through a mouli to get rid of any seeds. 
  • Add the tomato sauce to the rabbit in the pan, bring to a simmer, and reduce the sauce over a low heat for around 15 minutes. 
  • Remove the charred skin from the peppers, chop them roughly, and add them to the pan, along with the chorizo and stock, and bring back to a simmer.
  • Cover the pan and cook slowly for around an hour, until the rabbit is falling from the bone. Strip the meat from the bones, and put it back into the stew. 
  • Just before serving, mix the parsley, lemon and olive oil and drizzle over the stew. 

I’m not sure what you are meant to serve this with, we had potatoes. 

Chestnut and chorizo soup

The weather is very dank at the moment, rain every day, overcast and cold, hardly like midsummer at all. I made this tonight, using vacuum-packed chestnuts, carrots and celery from the garden, and some cooking chorizo from the freezer.

The recipe is from the Moro cookbook, full of interesting recipes that are generally easy to cook and taste wonderful. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • 1 medium carrot, diced
  • 1 stick of celery, finely sliced
  • 120g mild cooking chorizo, chopped into 1cm cubes
  • 2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp dried thyme leaves
  • 2 small dried red chillies, crushed
  • half a tin of chopped tomatoes
  • around 500g cooked peeled chestnuts
  • 20 saffron threads, infused in 4 tbsp boiling water
  • 1 litre boiling water
  • salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:

  • Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat, and fry the onion, carrot, celery and chorizo for around 20 minutes, stirring, until the vegetables are caramelised. 
  • Add the garlic, thyme, cumin and chillies, and stir in well
  • Add the tomatoes, stir again and then a couple of minutes later, add the chestnuts, water and saffron water and simmer for around 10 minutes
  • Remove from the heat and mash the chestnuts. I used a soup wand, leaving the soup slightly rough and chunky. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

I think you could add a glass of dry sherry to this, I’ll try this tomorrow. It freezes well too. 

Patatas a lo pobre – Potatoes and green peppers

The trick with this dish is to stew the peppers and potatoes slowly in olive oil. We had this with grilled pork chops.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 250ml good olive oil 
  • 3 onions, sliced
  • 5 cloves of garlic, sliced
  • 3 green peppers, roughly chopped
  • 1kg firm potatoes, peeled, halved lengthways and then sliced 
  • salt and pepper
  • a pinch of fennel seeds, optional. 
  • 4 bay leaves, optional

METHOD:

  • In a large pan or casserole dish, heat the oil over a lowish heat. 
  • Start cooking the potatoes in the oil, and when they start to cook and soften a bit, add the onions, peppers, garlic, fennel seeds, bay leaves, grated black pepper and a good pinch of salt. Simmer for around 15 minutes. 
  • Drain off the oil using a sieve, set the oil aside for further use. 
  • Serve with pork or lamb chops.