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rabbit redux
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January 19, 2003
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« rabbit pie | Main | malaysian lamb stew »
Farmer's Market
I spent $200 at the grocery store on Saturday. This is unsurprising, considering that I haven't made a real shopping trip since before I left town for the holidays. What is surprising is that I felt the need to go to the Farmer's Market yesterday. I spent maybe $35, but at the Farmer's Market, $35 goes a long way. For instance:
Ten ripe persimmons: $1.00
Enough wild greens for 7 salads: $2.50
Two largish Dungeness crabs: $6.00
While I was buying the crab, I noticed a bin of mackerel nearby. Ever since acquiring Peterson's Fish & Shellfish I've wanted to mess around with mackerel. I looked at the sign: $1.00/lb. They looked to be about a pound each, so I asked for three pounds. After a moment, I was handed a bag with at least 10 mackerel. (Apparently I am a very bad judge of weight.)
Every time I go to the Farmer's Market, I think: why do I ever buy produce at the grocery store? Convenience is the answer, but the premium paid is quite extravagant considering that I have a Farmer's Market within walking distance that, with a little foresight and a willingness to contribute an hour and a half on Sunday mornings, can serve to satisfy all of my produce needs.
When I got home, I cooked and froze the crabs and made persimmon chutney. Then Rebecca and I had sex and played videogames until it was time to start thinking about what to make for dinner.
This is the life, I tell you.
I rarely make salads. The salads I grew up with were mostly banal constructions -- vegetable barriers which had to be surmounted before one could get at the main course.
As an adult and a foodophile, I now know that building a truly successful salad requires sensibilities that I do not posess in large amounts: economy, balance, style. Salad-making, I've always thought, is very Japanese; food reduced to its barest essentials. Breathtaking when successful, but the slightest misstep is glaringly obvious.
Nevertheless, I've come full circle to the situation I faced in my youth. I need more vegetables in my diet, and salads are one of the easiest ways to do that. So I must resist my own laziness. With you as my witness, I pledge that if I ever catch myself throwing random greens and chopped vegetables into a bowl, dousing it with Ranch, and serving it up to someone, then ... I'll cut off my own hand. Er, a finger. No, that would make it too hard to cook. How about a toe? Maybe the little one.
Though this salad needs work, I think I'm on the right track. The sweetness of the grapefruit contrasts nicely with the strong, salty mackerel flavor.
I had a lot of trouble coming up with a rabbit dish to follow up the Rabbit Pie. I tried to think of what I wanted out of a rabbit dish. I kept coming around to rabbit and mushroom ragouts in creamy, roux-thickened, brandy- and madiera- laden sauces. Throw a crust on that and what do you have? Rabbit Pie. I was stuck in a rut.
I still think that ragout is the best way to present rabbit. That way you get the subtle gamy flavor and pleasant texture distributed through as much food as possible.
The other major direction for rabbit dishes is with a tomato-based sauce. I'd been resisting this, thinking that tomatoes would overwhelm the taste of the rabbit. If your game meat is too gamy, I suspect that a tomato sauce is a good idea. Otherwise, I'd say to avoid it.
But I couldn't think of anything else. Then I remembered a wierd recipe I'd run across a few months ago involving rabbit, tomatoes, and figs. Sure, why not?
Here's what I improvised:
Ingredients
1 large rabbit or 2 lb rabbit meat 1 rib of celery 1/2 c diced ham 6 dried figs 1 14 oz can tomatoes 2 tbsp tomato sauce 8 oz chopped fresh mushrooms 2-3 cloves garlic, chopped fresh basil, chopped
Preparation
Chop rabbit into bite-sized pieces. Mix a cup of flour with salt, pepper, and sugar and coat the rabbit pieces with it.
Saute celery, diced ham, and garlic in olive oil. Add the mushrooms and dried figs. Once the mushrooms have lost their water, remove all ingredients from the pan.
Add more olive oil and a third of the rabbit. Saute until browned, making sure to keep the bottom of the pan reasonably clear of accumulation from the flour. Repeat for the other two portions of the rabbit.
Deglaze the pan with wine. Return the vegetables to the pan. Add the tomatoes and the basil and stir. Add half of the stock. Stir occasionally to avoid burning. Add the other half of the stock and stir.
Serve over polenta.
This dish was fairly successful. Sufficiently different from the pot pie so as not to attract unwarranted comparison, and moderately healthier, response was positive enough that I may experiment with it further. In the future, I think I'll focus on freshness and discreteness of the flavors rather than trying to cook them together. I'll still use dried figs, but I will parboil, peel, and chop fresh tomatoes instead of using canned. I won't saute them with everything else, but sprinkle the over the dish afterward. I won't flour the rabbit. I'll nix the tomato sauce and opt for something thinner but with more bite.
The Macrostie Chardonnay was excellent. At $15, it's a revelation. It's got all the earmarks of an over-the-top California Chard: 100% Malo, 1/4 new oak, Hungarian wood -- but in the end, what you taste is lush tropical fruit and spices, with just enough oak and butter to fill it out.
January 19, 2003 in main_dishes, menus, old_site, recipes, salads | Permalink
