Rabbit pie and veal cutlets

For reasons that escape even me, when I was at the butchers' counter at Chatsworth on Saturday, and in what can only be described as a massively unlikely impulse buy, I acquired a rabbit ready for the pot.

I have never cooked rabbit before.

I have eaten it, and certainly not disliked it - but I probably wouldn't choose it from a restaurant menu.

I wasn't absolutely sure what to do with it, and in the end put it in my slow cooker with a glass of white wine and a jugful of tasty, rich chicken and sage stock.

Tony had spoken of fond memories of rabbit pie when he was evacuated as a boy from London to a farm in Edwinstowe during WWII, so I took the stewed rabbit, removed all the bones and put the very soft meat into a pie dish.  I added mushrooms and some of the braising broth, thickened to form a gravy and covered the lot with puff pastry, brushed with an egg wash.

It looked lovely when it came out of the oven

But I have to say it was something of a disappointment.  I'm not sure whether it was because it was a farmed rabbit rather than wild, or whether it just didn't want to be stewed in the slow cooker all day, but it was remarkably tasteless, even in what was quite a rich gravy.  And it had an after taste that was unpleasant to my palette (although The Builder didn't notice it). 

I'm not sure that I would bother to buy rabbit again, except that it would be interesting to see if it tasted any better if it was fried or even roasted rather than stewed.  The stew really needed the addition of LOTS of herbs and spices and flavourings. You'd almost have been better off with a boiling chicken!

I haven't seen them at the butchers' counter before.  Maybe if I see them again I'll give it another try and see if cooking it another way helps at all.

At the same time as I impulsively bought the rabbit, I also (and equally impulsively) bought two rose veal chops.  We had those on Saturday night, dipped in egg, flour and breadcrumbs, then brushed with melted butter and lemon juice. They were too large to fry successfully so I baked them in the oven until crispy and toasted on the outside.  They were absolutely delicious.  Lovely and steamy and succulent on the inside and crunchy on the outside.  I'll definitely buy those again!