LOVE THE ONE YOU’RE WITH

Athens, Georgia; March 8, 2025: I have lived on three continents and in the Caribbean. Most of the meals I have eaten I have prepared myself. And while I learned to make French fries in Paris and pesto in Liguria and dan dan noodles in China and coconut patties in the Virgin Islands and lutenitsa in Bulgaria and green mango salad in Cambodia, I have continued to fry chicken and make hoppin’ john and shrimp and grits wherever I have lived. And I’ve learned to cook with what’s available. I’ve long championed fresh, local, and traditional foods, but finding collard or turnip greens in Bulgaria or buttermilk in Asia was an impossibility, so I have improvised. When I develop my versions of traditional recipes for the modern cook, I often suggest substitutions, hoping that the essence of the dish is preserved, whether or not the ingredients are conventional. And I encourage you to respond to what’s fresh and local.

During the last twenty years, there has been a lot written about “authenticity” in cooking. I think the term is overused. I’ve seen macadamia nuts in “traditional” southern dishes being served at restaurants that claim to be authentic – whatever that now means. Perhaps the chef worked in Hawaii for a while. I get it. Lord knows my own cooking has been greatly influenced by my peripatetic life. My use of black pepper has changed dramatically since I first visited Sri Lanka in 2007 and even more so since living in Cambodia 2019-2023 (See my essay on pepper in CHARLESTON TO PHNOM PENH (University of South Carolina Press, 2022).) I use a wok more often than I used to. I keep several different salts on hand. And extra virgin olive oil lubricates many of the dishes now that I used to anoint with butter and bacon grease.

Twice in the past year I have found a frozen rabbit in local butcher shops here in Athens – most recently at the newly opened country store/gas station/butcher/gourmet grocery REDSTONE which is nine miles out of town in mostly rural Jackson County, one of the fastest growing counties in the state and country. (Its population has increased by 23% in the past five years.) I know that I have written about rabbit quite a few times in the past twenty years, but I’ve never posted a recipe for the classic dish, Rabbit with Prunes.

The French call this dish Lapin aux Pruneaux, but there are as many versions as there are rabbit cooks in France. Some call for white wine, some call for red, and most call for veal stock (though I have never understood why you would add veal stock when you can make a rabbit stock from the trimmings, intensifying the rabbit flavor). There are versions in Belgium and Germany that use ale. The dish can be simmered on top of the stove or baked in the oven, but nearly all versions call for a marinade in advance and a browning of the meat prior to the braising. I use an oblong earthenware dish that I bought early one morning in Estremoz, Portugal, while touring the olive oil producing Alentejo region with the International Olive Oil Council in the ‘90s. The “cazuela” is flame-proof, so I brown the meat and vegetables in it on top of the stove, then transfer the pot to the oven. In France, when bacon is added to the dish, it is called “Lapin à la Cocotte,” after the dish it is made in.

In Bulgaria and China, the rabbits were invariably sold with their heads on. The people of Sichuan consume 300 million rabbits a year (which means that 9 rabbits per second are eaten in the province!).  In Chengdu, spicy rabbit heads are a traditional street food. The preparation is complicated, involving marinating, blanching, and stewing for several hours. I’ve only seen frozen rabbits here in the States, never with the head attached. I was surprised to have never found them in Southeast Asia, but was told that it was too hot there. Most American rabbits are raised for meat in the Northeast. The last one I got at Redstone was from New Jersey and weighed over 3 pounds. It’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen in the US. It came with the liver and kidneys attached. I cooked the offal slowly in butter then added a bit of crème fraiche, some Armagnac, and seasoning, and pureed the mixture to make a spread for crackers to have with drinks before dinner. Because I also had a plethora of parsley, I turned to British chef Simon Hopkinson’s ROAST CHICKEN AND OTHER STORIES (Ebury Press, 1994), for an accompanying “salad,”  having prepared his parsley soup before. His recipe yields enough for 25, he says, but I used what I had and made his accompanying “biscuits” as well – a fried dough similar to Indian papadams. Meant as an appetizer, the biscuits are to be topped with dollops of the “salad.” I served the parsley concoction on top of several of the “biscuits.” Egg noodles complemented the rabbit, though potatoes or a parsnip puree would be equally welcome.

I trim the belly flaps, the tips of the forelegs, and the neckbone of the rabbit to make the stock that the recipe calls for. I trim the ribs with a bit of tenderloin, season them with salt and cayenne, and put them in the oven to cook while I am heating it for the final dish. They are the cook’s treat (see photo, left). For my bouquets garnis, I used a rib of celery tied with fresh parsley, thyme from my neighbor’s yard, and a bay leaf. Several Kampot peppercorns were slightly crushed and added to the stock pot. From the rabbit, I carved out both the hind legs and the forelegs, and cut the saddle into four pieces. The rabbit should marinate for 12 to 24 hours in the refrigerator

Rabbit with Prunes

1 rabbit (2-1/2 to 3-1/2 pounds), cut into pieces (see above)

1 onion, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

two bouquets garnis (see above), one for the stock and one for the braised rabbit

6 to 8 black peppercorns, plus pepper in a mill for seasoning

1-1/2 cups red wine of your choice, preferably what you will serve with the meal

1 tablespoon olive oil

6 to 8 ounces of pitted prunes

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup veal, chicken, or, preferably, rabbit stock

1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped

salt

chopped parsley, for garnish

I mix the rabbit with the marinade ingredients (the rabbit, onion, carrot, a bouquet garni, the peppercorns, ½ cup of the wine, and the olive oil) in a bowl, but then transfer it all to a plastic bag and make sure that all the ingredients are equally covered with the marinade. I place the bag in bowl in the refrigerator overnight.

When ready to cook, pour boiling water over the prunes and leave until cool. Drain the rabbit, saving the marinade and vegetables. Pat the rabbit pieces dry.  I use old kitchen towels for chores like this in the kitchen rather than paper towels. I immediately rinse the towel and it goes in the laundry. If you are finishing the dish in the oven, heat it to 350°F. (You may have already heated the oven by now, with the ribs therein.)

Heat the oil and butter in a shallow oven-proof dish and brown the rabbit pieces, setting them aside while you sauté the onion and carrot until the onion clears. Dust the vegetables with the flour and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the flour browns. Stir in the marinade, the bouquet garni, and a cup of the wine, and bring to a boil. Add the stock, garlic, and salt to taste, then return the rabbit pieces to the pan, equally distributing the meat, vegetables, and liquids.

Simmer the dish, covered, for about a half hour, covered, either on top of the stove or in the oven. Do not let it boil. Traditionally, the sauce is strained at this point, but I like to serve the vegetables as well. Drain the prunes, add them to the casserole, cover the pan, and simmer for another 10 or 15 minutes until the rabbit is tender.

In the meantime I prepare either noodles (or potatoes). The dish serves four but since we were only two, I removed the rabbit pieces to a dinner plates with tongs, then added onion and carrot pieces with lots of sauce, spooning it over the meat and noodles. You can increase the heat on the sauce to reduce it if you desire and strain it onto the plate of rabbit, vegetables, and noodles, but I didn’t. A chopped parsley garnish is nice. Pass the peppermill.

My version of Simon Hopkinson’s version of Gay Bilson’s Parsley Salad:

“Hop,” as chef Hopkinson’s friends call him (and which some of my friends call me as well – short for “Hoppin’ John”), says that this is “one of the best things [he’s] ever eaten. All at once it is refreshing, sour and salty – everything that you could need to sharpen the appetite. The little biscuits that go with it are perfection.”

Chef Gay Bilson of Sydney’s Berowra Waters Inn serves these as a small taster along with a glass of Bollinger. My big mound of parsley leaves yielded one cup, coarsely chopped. In a mortar, I ground two salted anchovies, rinsed, with a clove of garlic, then added about a tablespoon of grated onion, the grated zest of a lemon, a pinch of coarse salt, olive oil, and freshly squeezed lemon juice. I tossed the parsley with the dressing, adding 12 black olives and a tablespoon of rinsed capers. I finished the concoction with a few grinds of black pepper and some thin slivers of Parmesan. All of my kitchen tools haven’t yet arrived from Hanoi, so I had to use my truffle shaver, which has long been in storage, to shave the cheese.

For the papadam-like “biscuits” I mixed 3 ounces of all-purpose flour with ½ teaspoon of salt and a pinch of cayenne and a pinch of baking powder in the work bowl of a food processor then poured in 1-1/2 fluid ounces of water heated with a tab of butter until the dough formed a ball. I let the dough sit for a half hour, then heated a pot of oil to 365°F while I ran the dough through a hand cranked pasta machine to its thinnest setting. I cut the dough into little rectangles and fried them quickly until they puffed up with bubbles, then drained them on paper towels. Lovely and unusual.

I cooked the rabbit in Pinot Noir, as is often suggested in French recipes, and I served a Pinot Noir with it as well, but they were both light American wines, and while the low tannins did not overwhelm the rabbit, I think I would prefer a bit more character next time around. Perhaps a Côtes du Rhône or a Nebbiolo.

 

 

 

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