Now here we are at the end of rabbit week . . . the gang has made some great dishes. The main commonality has been cooking that bunny long and slow. Rabbit is a lean meat (all of that incessant hopping will do that to you apparently) and it benefits from a long, slow cooking with plenty of liquids.

Like Amy, I have a titch of trouble compartmentalizing the tasty treat on my plate with those fluffy things that some folks keep as pets. Mind you, the compartmentalizing has gotten easier since the bunny population in the woods has exploded and the damn things wreak havoc on my garden. Besides, cows, pigs, and baby chickens are cute and I have no trouble chewing on any of those!

Because of the need for a long, slow cooking in plenty of liquid I decided to make a rabbit sugu (Ragu is another word to describe a nice meaty sauce but I can NOT bring myself to use the phrase since it was appropriated by a giant food conglomerate for a crap jarred pasta sauce).

Heck, we decided to go all out and make our own garganelli pasta to serve with this ragu. I had learned how to make this when we took a cooking class in Bologna. Garganelli are a type of pasta formed by rolling a flat, square noodle into a tubular shape. They can be made from smooth pasta or a ridged variant reminiscent of corduroy.

While garganelli are very similar to penne, they differ in that a "flap" is clearly visible where one corner of the pasta square adheres to the rest, as opposed to a perfect cylinder in penne. We learned to make them by rolling them on a dowel and then running it across a small frame with ridges to leave the marks. When cooked, the pasta and sauce adhere brilliantly because of both the hollow centre and the ridges.

Here we are making the garganelli:

The pasta recipe we used was dryer than I'm used to. I think I'll need to go back to the 2 cups of flour and 4 eggs that produces a lovely, soft, eggy pasta. Given that this was our first attempt at making garganelli and it had been almost two years since the cooking class I was pleased with the results:

The sugo involves three main steps - marinating the bunny for 2 hours or up to overnight. Preparing the 'base' flavours by slowly cooking the sofritto (carrots, onion, and celery) and then browning the bunny in the sofritto. The final step is the long, slow cooking in wine, stock, and tomatoes. You can see that this isn't a weeknight recipe - this is perfect for one of those lazy weekends. The actually time in the kitchen isn't great since most of the work requires little attention at all.

We were impressed with the dish. It made far more than we could eat which was great because I know it will freeze well - another benefit from making a big pot of sugo . . . it is around for a while! *smile*

Rabbit Sugo

1 rabbit, about 3 lbs, cut into 8 pieces
2 cups dry red wine
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
7 or 8 whole peppercorns
1 carrot, peeled, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
flour for dredging
3 cups chicken stock
2 cups crushed tomatoes (I used one of those tetra containers of Pommi crushed tomatoes imported from Italy)

In a non-reactive container or zip-lock bag combine the wine, 1/2 cup olive oil, thyme, bay leaves, garlic, and peppercorns. Add the rabbit pieces, making sure they are well-covered with the marinade. Put in the refrigerator for 2 hours or overnight.

Bring rabbit to room temperature (about 30 minutes) before you start cooking with it.

Remove the rabbit from the marinade being sure to preserve the marinade. Gently pat the rabbit dry with a paper towel.

In a large sauté pan head the remaining olive oil over medium heat. Add the carrot, celery, and onion. Sauté for about 7 minutes or until the onion is a golden brown.

Dredge the bunny pieces in flour (I put flour and bunny pieces in a zip lock bag and shook it up). Add to the pan and brown on each side for about 5 minutes.

Add the reserved marinade to the pan and stir to scrap all of the delicious browned bits at the bottom of the pan. Cook for about 15 minutes in the marinade.

Add the stock and crushed tomatoes.

Decrease the heat, cover, and cook slowly for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until the meat is tender and falling off the bones.

Remove the rabbit from the sauce. When cool enough to handle shred the meat from the bones. Return the rabbit to the pan. Adjust the salt and pepper to taste.

Serve.

now on to lentils . . . .