Rabbit Stew with Sweet Potatoes and Mushrooms – A Recipe

I’ve recently tried my hand at rabbit stew. The outcome was so good I thought, heck, why not share the recipe. It’s pretty standard with no added chocolate, goat cheese, samphire, parsnip ice cream, or other weird stuff.

On a few occasions in the past I’ve been told that I’m a decent cook. Compared with most passably passionate amateur cooks, who usually have a ton more talent, I’m pretty rubbish. One of the reasons I post recipes here on Berkeley Square Barbarian, is to get some ideas out there. You’ve never cooked rabbit stew? Well, now might be as good as any time to get started. This was my first time.

 

By all means, do shop around, google other recipes. I’ve achieved all I wanted to achieve if a few of you readers out there get thinking about trying out new stuff.

 

INGREDIENTS (2 persons)

 

Whole, skinned, gutted rabbit

Pepper

Salt

Ground nutmeg

Celeriac

A few carrots

Small bunch of parsley

Garlic

Onion

Beef stew (I use Knorr cubes)

0.4l dry red wine

A few sweet potatoes

A few mushrooms

Baguette

Flour

 

INSTRUCTIONS (1h 45m total cooking time, incl. 30m preparation)

 

Clean all the vegetables (and the fungi, yes, thanks for asking).

Fry the whole, skinned, gutted rabbit in a frying pan with a little bit of oil until it’s brown on all sides. Use a spatula to press the meat against the pan floor if needed.

Separate the meat from the bones as well as you can manage, and cut the meat into chunks bigger than bite-size, where possible.

Take a relatively large pot, put the parsley in (whole small bunch except for a few bits which you place separately in a bowl, do not chop).

 

Chop the remaining bits of parsley.

Peel the carrots and the celeriac. Cut the carrots, the celeriac and the onion into chunks bigger than bite-size, and add them.

Chop the garlic into little slices and add.

Add beef stock.

Add ground pepper and nutmeg. Do NOT add salt for now.

Add the rabbit bits, including the bones.

If the rabbit is not yet fully covered in liquid, then add water until it is.

 

Do NOT put a lid on the pot.

Add half the red wine to the pot.

Use the remaining red wine to top up liquid lost to evaporation. Once all wine has been used, allow the liquid to reduce. Use hot water in case the liquid diminishes too much. Remember that this is a stew, so you want more liquid than just a few drops of sauce. For the vast majority of cooking time, the majority of the meat should be submerged in liquid. Move the meat and bones around every now and then, so that the exposed pieces don’t get dry.

The sweet potatoes will take about 40 minutes at 180C in the oven. Slice them into thick slices, put them on aluminium foil into the pre-heated oven 40 minutes before the stew will be ready.

Simmer the stew on low heat for roughly 1.5h. Every now and then use a spoon to skim off the foam that builds on the top. Dispose of the foam.

After about 1.25h cooking time, remove the parsley from the pot and dispose of it.

Immediately after that, use a large serving spoon to put some of the liquid into a 400ml glass. Make sure none of the items floating around in the liquid like meat and vegetables get into the glass, to the extent possible.

Slowly and gradually stir in one table spoon or two of flour as a thickening agent. Add the liquid (now with the added flour) back into the pot.

The mushrooms will only take about 8 minutes of pan-frying. Cut them into thin slices, just 3mm or so thick. Pan-fry them with butter and a bit of salt, nutmeg, and pepper. They should have changed their colour, but you want their texture to still be largely intact.

Taste the liquid. Add salt if needed.

Slice the baguette and put the slices in a basket for everyone to help themselves.

Put the rabbit stew onto plates, including the bones, and sides.

Sprinkle the chopped parsley leaves over the plates before serving.

Enjoy the meal. You are not in a restaurant. Feel welcome to use your hands with the bony bits.

Any liquid not used can be frozen or refrigerated and used as sauce in other dishes.

Equally, do not throw away those vegetables that you have not put on the plates (usually you don’t put all the vegetables on the plate, only a few bits). They should hopefully taste delicious and can be frozen or refrigerated and enjoyed as part of other dishes or simply with rye and butter.

Let me know how it went. All feedback is welcome, good and bad. I can only correct errors and omissions if you let me know. Perhaps you have ideas on how to improve the recipe or you know how to make the recipe compliant for certain dietary needs?

Looking for more recipes? Feel welcome to eyeball our attempts at razor clams, mushroom pork medallions, emperor’s mess, bacalhau a bras, or conger steaks.

For restaurant reviews you might want to check out our articles about Coco Momo, Pachamama, Ninth, Lafleur, Paul, L’Ange 20, and Gruvelageret.