Rabbit Stew in a Thick Vegetable Sauce

Name: Rabbit Stew in Vegetable Sauce Recipe
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 1 h 15 min
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Rabbit (drumsticks) 1 kg; Onion 3-4; Sweet pepper 2-3; Garlic 2-3 cloves; Ripe tomatoes 5-6; Butter 50 g; Olive oil 2 tbsp; Herbes de Provence 0.5 tsp; Sweet paprika 0.5 tsp; Salt, black pepper to taste; Water or white wine a quarter cup (only if needed); Green onion optional; Boiled rice or mashed potatoes as a side dish, optional

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1 h 30 mins

Of all the dishes made with meat braised in sauce, my favorite is rabbit stew. We usually make it in autumn or winter. Nowadays you can often find rabbit meat sold already cut up, as ready-to-cook pieces. This is very convenient, and you can make braised dishes whenever you like. Braised rabbit is especially good with fresh vegetables, which make up the sauce.

The peculiarity of this stew is that the rabbit is browned first and then braised in the sauce. The sauce is made of chopped juicy vegetables: tomatoes, onion, bell pepper and so on. No other liquid is added. The sauce uses spices, even more than usual. This gives an intense aroma and a pleasant, piquant taste. The same technique is used when making rabbit in sour cream.

It is important to brown the rabbit pieces first, until they get a light golden color. This helps the pieces of meat stay whole. It is better to braise the meat without water and over the lowest heat. Rabbit meat is very tender and can fall apart when cooked. That won’t spoil the taste, though big pieces of meat in a sauce look much nicer on the plate.

Choose juicy, seasonal vegetables to braise the meat with. With ripe tomatoes, sweet bell peppers and onion, you can do without adding extra liquid. The pieces of meat simmer in the vegetable mixture, which together with the meat juices turns into a wonderful sauce. If you like, you can add a little dry white wine to the sauce to broaden the flavor of the dish. I showed how to braise vegetables so they don’t turn to mush in the recipe for vegetable stew, and here is another version: vegetable stew with pork.

You can cook the dish from a whole rabbit carcass, but the pieces come out different, with different amounts of meat, which is inconvenient for serving portions. A cut in the form of a set of drumsticks with the bone sticking out is ideal, and they are almost always on sale.

It is important to let all the ingredients simmer over low heat, so the flavors and aromas blend into one. You can significantly increase the amount of onion and other vegetables. That brings the dish closer to Bulgarian versions of various stews, or to Hungarian pörkölt. You can add carrot to the sauce, cut coarsely or finely. The sauce is also very good with sweet paprika. Serve the dish on its own or with a side dish of mashed potatoes or boiled rice. Though to my taste, with a lot of sauce, fresh bread is enough.

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Ingredients

4 servings

For the stew
Rabbit (drumsticks) 1 kg
Onion 3-4
Sweet pepper 2-3
Garlic 2-3 cloves
Ripe tomatoes 5-6
Butter 50 g
Olive oil 2 tbsp
Herbes de Provence 0.5 tsp
Sweet paprika 0.5 tsp
Salt, black pepper to taste
Water or white wine a quarter cup (only if needed)
For serving
Green onion optional
Boiled rice or mashed potatoes as a side dish, optional

Step-by-step recipe

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Preparing the meat and vegetables

Prepare the meat. Frozen rabbit should be thawed in the refrigerator, so it doesn’t leak juices. Chop a whole carcass into portion-size pieces first. Rabbit meat can often have a distinctive smell, so it is worth soaking it for a few hours in water acidified with vinegar. Rinse the pieces of meat and trim off any remaining fat, fluff and so on.
Choose the vegetables for the sauce. You can use more of them to get plenty of sauce. Use the ripest, reddest tomatoes; if you can’t find ripe tomatoes, natural homemade tomato juice will do. Any sweet pepper will work. I advise adding a lot of onion to the sauce. Other vegetables are strictly optional.
Roast the sweet pepper until the skin darkens, then peel off its outer skin. The skin is like plastic film and is very noticeable in braised dishes. Remove the seeds and chop the flesh with a knife.
Scald the ripe red tomatoes with boiling water, peel off the skin and remove the seeds. Chop the flesh with a knife or puree it with a blender.

Browning the rabbit

In a large, deep frying pan with a lid, heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat. Meat browned in this mixture of fats gives the stew its unique aroma. Pat the rabbit pieces dry with paper towels and put them into the hot fat.
Turning the pieces several times, brown them until they get a light golden color.
While the meat is browning, peel the onion and cut it into thick strips. Add the onion to the rabbit and fry them together until the onion is soft. Sprinkle in 0.5 tsp each of herbes de Provence and ground red sweet paprika; coarsely ground paprika is better, as it is more aromatic. For aroma, add finely chopped garlic.

Braising the stew

Add the chopped tomatoes and sweet pepper to the pan.
Braise the rabbit, covered, over the lowest heat for 40-45 minutes, until the meat is tender. From time to time, gently stir all the ingredients. When heated, the rabbit and juicy vegetables give off enough moisture for the meat to braise. If really necessary, you can add a quarter cup of water or white wine. Shortly before the end of cooking, salt the stew and season with freshly ground black pepper.

Serving

If you decide to serve the rabbit with a side dish, cook some boiled rice. It doesn’t have to be fluffy. Dense, slightly sticky rice of the Camolino variety is a very good choice, and I like it best. Or, alternatively, make mashed potatoes.
While the meat is still hot, put it on a plate; a small soup plate with a rounded bottom works well. Pour the sauce over the rabbit. The dish is very good sprinkled with finely chopped green onion. The dish is ready to serve.

Calories and macros

495 kcal

Serving ≈ 470 g

Protein41 g35% of kcal
Fat28 g53% of kcal
Carbs15 g13% of kcal

100 g105 kcalProtein 8.7 gFat 5.9 gCarbs 3.2 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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