Rabbit Stifado

A friend of mine's boyfriend helped me out recently by shooting some foxes who were attacking my hens and ducks in broad daylight. I resorted to him in desperation when a vixen ran across in full view of my kitchen window with one of my hens in her mouth, I had had enough!  He told me he also shot bunnies for fun......and when I heard this I was mad for some wild rabbit.  He gave me two gutted, skinned and already frozen so I searched You Tube to see how to joint them.  With laptop propped up on the counter I jointed one of them in jig time.  A classic Greek stew stew is Rabbit Stifado.

To make it,  I dipped the pieces of meat in seasoned flour and fried off.  I browned about 12 shallots and added them to the meat.  Then half a bottle of red wine, a glug of red wine vinegar, some chicken stock and the following seasonings, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, a few sprigs of thyme and whole black peppercorns.  I simmered it for about one and a half hours until the rabbit came easily off the bone.  I left it in the fridge for a couple of days for the flavours to meld and improve.  It was really delicious served with some new season steamed spuds and peas from my veg patch. We had bread toasted and drizzled with olive oil and topped with melted Haloumi cheese to start.  A lovely meal and great for a dinner party as it can be prepared well in advance and just warmed up.  Plus your bunny is absolutely free-range and organic and tastes amazing but watch the bones!!  By the way one bunny cooked as above was more than enough for four servings.

Rabbit Stifado   Greek Recipes  Wild Rabbit Recipes  

Blackberry picking

I picked blackberries recently and saw a recipe on a blog for baked blackberry cheesecake.  The recipe was a bit all over the place (even for someone like me who doesn't get stressed about weights)!  It called for a pack of digestive biscuits; no size given?  I bought a largish pack in Aldi and added half the weight of melted butter.  Then I combined two tubs of cream cheese (Marscapone and ricotta) and added half their weight in icing sugar and one of my large duck eggs!  I added a good handful of blackberries and baked in oven, gas mark 3 for about an hour until it was just set, with a bit of a wobble.  It was so good I ate too much of it and was awake all night, as seriously it is so rich it would have sunk a battleship!!

Baked Blackberry Cheesecake   Blackberries  Foraging Blackberry Recipes