Braised Rabbit Legs
Out of all the rabbit recipes there are, I probably love braised rabbit the most, either in a sauce or braised with vegetables.
The cooking method we call braising comes down to a few simple rules. Usually food is braised in a small amount of liquid. It’s hard to call this boiling, because there is very little liquid, or even none at all, and the moisture released by the food itself during cooking is used.
By the way, many people like the term “in its own juices”, which means nothing extra, and above all no added liquid. Braising can’t be called frying either, because the food isn’t cooked by the strong heat of the pan in direct contact with it. Braising is something in between.
Usually for braising you add just a little liquid (or none at all), spices and seasonings, sometimes a sauce. Sometimes the food, usually meat or fish, is lightly fried before braising. Braising usually takes at least half an hour and almost always happens under a lid. I read somewhere that braising needs quite a lot of different spices to give the dish a rich flavor and aroma. I don’t quite agree: very often it’s better not to overpower the taste of the main ingredient of a braised dish.
The main advantage of braising is that it makes even very tough foods, such as meat, tender. During braising the hot liquid penetrates deep into the pieces (or the single piece) of meat and softens the tissue.
Perhaps one of the best-known dishes made by braising is the stew. In English-speaking countries there is a whole range of different stews. By and large, the main difference of this dish from the usual ragout is that the food is braised in liquid or in a mixture of vegetables that eventually serves as the sauce. Actually, it’s an ideal option for home cooking, since it spares us from preparing the dish and the sauce separately. I like that. Besides, you can vary the thickness of the sauce as you wish and end up with a tasty dish that is either closer to a thick soup or similar to a roast.
Rabbit is the ideal meat for home cooking. Since childhood I’ve remembered braised rabbit served with mashed potatoes, and it brings back warm feelings. My grandmother kept rabbits, and we, little rascals, were roped into gathering green grass to feed the long-eared ones. And in autumn, cooking braised rabbit was our reward.
What I like is that rabbit doesn’t need many spices, since the taste of braised rabbit itself already replaces them.
How to cook rabbit? Braised rabbit is quite simple to make and is served with delicious mashed potatoes.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Rabbit legs (or the hind half of the carcass) 2
- Onions 3-4
- Potatoes 3
- Butter 50 g
- Dry white wine 100 ml
- Rosemary 2 sprigs
- Flour 1 tbsp
(10 g) - Salt, ground black pepper to taste
Step-by-step recipe
Reading cookbooks, you can almost always find a recommendation to soak the rabbit meat in acidulated water beforehand. I admit, I’ve always been puzzled by this. I haven’t noticed that rabbit meat smells particularly unpleasant. Wild rabbits and hares are another matter, those can’t do without soaking. But just in case, or rather to improve the flavor, we’ll soak the rabbit meat in dry white wine for an hour.
Prepare the rabbit meat: remove the membranes, leftover fat, visible tendons and, possibly, bits of fur (that happens too). The rabbit leg is quite thick meat, so it’s worth piercing it through the middle with a knife. Season the rabbit with salt and pepper to taste, but not too much. Place the rabbit in a deep ceramic dish (plastic or glass works too, but not metal). Add 2 sprigs of fresh green rosemary and pour in the dry white wine. Leave the rabbit to marinate for 1 hour. It doesn’t matter that the meat isn’t completely covered with liquid. Just turn the pieces over from time to time.
Melt the butter in a frying pan. I want to stress that you need to use real, natural butter, not a spread or something “butter-flavored” (it even made me shudder). The aroma of real butter is very noticeable in this dish and gives it a mellow flavor. So make sure of it.
When the butter has melted, take the rabbit pieces out of the marinade. Don’t pour the marinade away, you’ll need it later. Pat the meat dry with a paper towel and coat it in flour. Fry the rabbit pieces in the butter on both sides until a golden crust forms.
While the rabbit is frying, peel the onions and cut them into thin strips. As soon as the rabbit is browned, cover the pieces with the sliced onions, add just a little salt and pepper, add the rosemary from the marinade and pour in all the remaining marinade. Add hot water, about 120-150 ml. The rabbit pieces should be almost covered with liquid. More liquid isn’t a problem, but keep in mind that both the onions and the rabbit itself will release extra liquid. Anyway, at the end you can reduce the excess liquid a little by taking off the lid.
Bring the liquid to a boil, cover the pan with a lid and turn the heat down to the minimum. Rabbit cooks over a very low heat. Braise for 30 minutes, turning the meat pieces and stirring the onion sauce. That’s enough time for the rabbit to be completely done. Then take off the lid and raise the heat a little. Reduce the excess liquid. The braised rabbit doesn’t have to stay in the sauce, you can take it out.
While the rabbit is braising, peel the potatoes and make the mashed potatoes. Spread the mashed potatoes around the edge of the plate to form a rim. Into the well that forms, spoon the thick onion sauce, first removing the rosemary sprigs from it. If the rosemary leaves have come off the stems, don’t worry, the sauce will only benefit. I remembered a wonderful recipe: rabbit with rosemary.
Put the braised rabbit on top and garnish with something, for example a sprig of fresh rosemary.
Calories and macros
1955 kcal
Serving ≈ 1340 g
- Protein233 g50% of kcal
- Fat83 g40% of kcal
- Carbs48 g10% of kcal
100 g146 kcalProtein 17.4 gFat 6.2 gCarbs 3.6 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
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