Have you ever cooked rabbit before? It’s not a popular meat to cook with in Australia anymore, but it’s still used often throughout Italy. I had tried a delicious cacciatore with rabbit when I was in Rome at a cooking class a few years ago though and was pleasantly delighted by just how delicious rabbit could be. So when we found not one, but two rabbit recipes in Amalia’s stash of notes, I jumped at the chance to try them! Read on to find out how to make the first recipe for Ligurian-style braised rabbit or ‘coniglio alla ligure’ as it’s known in Italian.
Notes on coniglio alla ligure
This recipe for braised rabbit is a typical secondi (main) dish from Liguria in the north-west of Italy. Andrea’s nonna Amalia was actually born in Liguria and I’ve noticed that she continued to cook many Ligurian style dishes even if she lived in Piemonte for most of her life. Coniglio alla ligure is made with rabbit, wine, taggiasche olives and pine nuts. I actually didn’t have any pine nuts on hand, so feel free to leave them out if you don’t have any in your pantry (but note it’s traditional to use them).
How to cook rabbit Italian style
There are lots of different recipes to cook rabbit in Italy. The most well known (at least abroad) perhaps is cacciatore or ‘Hunter’s style’ in English. However, coniglio alla ligure is very well known to Italians and rightly so as it is seriously finger-licking delicious. Don’t be put off by trying rabbit if you’re a little bit squeamish, this recipe is totally worth it! Better yet, we actually were able to use the remains of this dish to create another two whole meals. We made a rabbit broth with the bones which was then used in our minestrone, and tonight we used the leftover red wine-olive sauce with a knob of butter to dress our fresh tagliatelle pasta. No wastage and three delicious meals…what’s not to love?!
Ingredients:
- 1 rabbit, skinned and cut into pieces
- Olive oil
- 1 cup of red wine ( I used dolcetto, a typical Piemontese wine)
- 2 bay leaves
- Pinch of fresh thyme and rosemary
- Beef stock
- Taggiasche olives
- 2 tsps olive paste
- Handful of pine nuts
Method
- Start by frying your rabbit pieces in a wide pan over a high heat until the skin is golden and crispy. Separate the liver from the rest of the rabbit and leave it out of the pan to cook towards the end.
- Reduce the heat slightly and pour the red wine into the pot. Pour the wine around the rabbit rather than directly on top of it. Cook for a few minutes and add your bay leaves.
- Add a few ladlefuls of hot beef stock to the pan and reduce your heat to medium-low. Add a pinch of thyme, rosemary and sea salt. Cover and leave to cook for 30 minutes.
- Halfway through the cooking time remove the bay leaves to ensure they don’t overpower the flavour.
- In the last 5 minutes of cooking time you can add the liver to the pan. It’s an acquired taste but very delicious and full of iron!
- Add a few tablespoons of taggiasche olives and 2 tsps of olive paste. Stir into the rabbit sauce and serve immediately with some pinenuts over the top. This is delicious with roasted potatoes or a fresh green salad.
Buon appetito! If you liked this dish then stay tuned for Nonna Amalia’s second rabbit dish coming next week. If you’d like to try more of Amalia’s recipes, you can find her Ligurian pesto here and leek risotto here. Don’t forget to end on a sweet note with one of her fabulous dolci. Magari apple cake, apricot crostata or salame dolce?