Wild Rabbit

A poor game

An unexplained death, dumplings, bones and butchery

A couple of evenings ago the early onset of nightness, the rain rattling against the window and a definite perception of accompanying cold I decided not to venture out but to have an evening in front of the tele. Quarter of an hour later after flicking through dozens and dozens of channels listed on the on-screen TV guide (many of which seemed to be the same but in HD, or not, or +1, or not) I was starting to wonder if I would have been better braving the elements after all. But wait, what do we have saved on the Sky box? Wedged between recordings of 'My Kitchen', 'The Good Cook', 'Rick Stein', 'Nigel Slater' and similar was 'Wrong Turn 2' – a light hearted tale of gory violence and cannibalism.

It is pure coincidence that a day or two later Peter came to dinner and never left.

The truth is, Peter was dinner... I ate him!

I'm currently a little obsessed with finding a really, really good cheese and onion pie but I'll tell you about that some other time. The thing is, in search of the makings for my next effort I found myself in one of the larger shops of our local supermarket chain. After picking up a box of Rose Garlic (like Carnaroli rice I always pick these up when I see them), some lose cherry tomatoes on the vine (that sounds like a contradiction in terms but you know what I mean) and a few other bits and pieces, none of which have anything to do with my pie by the way. I moved round to the meat section.

This shop has a nice section for game and stuff before you get to the more usual pork, beef and lamb sections. What caught my eye this particular day was a whole jointed rabbit (I know, a contradiction in terms again, but stay with me). I don't know what came over me, it can't have been nostalgia, rabbit has never been a major part of my diet and I certainly have no fond memories of eating it. I did have a pet rabbit as a child and my children also had pet rabbits, they were the nastiest, most vicious creatures you have ever known, the rabbits that is. They were attack rabbits, even Judy our chocolate Lab kept her distance. I hated them. Perhaps it was some sort of latent need for revenge that made me snatch up a box of joints before dashing back to the veg section for some roots, all thoughts of cheese and onion pie gone from my mind.

Back home, the contents of my carrier bag tipped onto the work surface 'Ready Steady Cook' style, it was time to examine my purchases. Wild Rabbit proclaimed the label – wild, well it would be wouldn't it. If I'd been shot, skinned and packed in a protective atmosphere, I'd be pretty cross too (sorry couldn't resist). The label also warned the meat may contain shot and remembering my mother skinning and popping out little black balls of shot from the flesh of a rabbit that mysteriously appeared in our kitchen one day, I decided to check mine out thoroughly. Each joint was carefully examined then placed on the meat board in a 'Waking the Dead' style reconstruction of the cadaver. It was at this point I decided to name him Peter. No head and not a single ball of shot, very curious, so how did he die? Judging by the amount of shot I seem to remember ending up on the draining board from the rabbit of my youth, the gallant hunter must have been so close when he opened fire, he could have whacked it on the back of the head with the barrel. Maybe that is what happened to Peter, it would certainly explain the absence of a head and any shot.

Although I had instinctively gone for the root vegetables in the supermarket I realised now back in my kitchen that I didn't really know what to do with my impulse buy. As a general rule, game needs to be cooked long and slow or fast and furious. Given that joints of meat from most wild animals have little natural fat, a stew, braise or casserole seems to be the order of the day. Peter's joints or should that be the joints of Peter were duly browned in a casserole. If I had had some streaky smoked bacon I would have included that but I didn't, the only thing I had was a couple of sausages heading out of their better days, so these were chopped into bite size pieces and browned as well. Next the chopped veg and onions were browned before some chicken stock and a half a bottle of pale ale were added (I had the other half – just to test). Apparently cider is good to use here but I'm fresh out of White Lightening. A few woody herbs were added and the whole lot left in a medium oven for an hour.

After an hour a prod with a knife shows Peter to be still as tough as old boots, as did a second prod an hour later. Another half hour and I'm losing patience. It may be the fact that I am by now well down a bottle of Chianti (wasn't that Hannibal Lecter's wine choice – starting to scare myself now). Even though there was still an absence of promising smells seeping from the oven I foolishly decide to forgo the Wilja's I'd got for mash and just knock up a few dumplings. This winters new packet of Atora was opened and a handful of golf ball size dumplings were produced. These were subsequently plopped into the stew and so Peter got another half hour in the oven. After three hours of virtually undisturbed cooking, time to plate up ready or not.

As you can imagine after all that time in the oven the carrots, turnips etc. were meltingly tender, the sausage is braised to perfection and Peter was totally, well totally indifferent. The whole thing lacked strength, body, taste. The dumplings, although light and fluffy also lacked that extra yummieness that they take on when cooked in the gravy of a good meaty beef stew. Although Peter's flesh is now coming away from the bigger bones of his back legs, extracting meat from the front legs and saddle was fiddly and unrewarding (not a good thing after consuming half a bottle of pale ale and three quarters of a bottle of Chianti while waiting three hours for the things to cook). As for what was very obviously the rib cage, it was just a total waste of effort. All in all, a very bad culinary experience, it was joyless to make and joyless to eat.

Leaving my plate full of bits of carcass, including the little bits I had to pick from my mouth. These I lined up round the rim of the plate, in much the same way we used to line up plum stones as children, and playing Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor. I retreated to the sofa with what was left of my wine and let my disappointment fester while pondering on the truth that I would be forever a Poor Man.

I can't come to terms with those little bits of bone that no matter how careful you are end up in your mouth and have to extract like wayward fish bones. Don't get me wrong I have no issues with bones, I can tuck into KFC with best of them and slipping that gorgeous glutinous meat from the vertebrae of an Ox tail is a winter high spot. That said the bone of my choice is the rib. Not the spiky, bendy, insubstantial rib of a rabbit but those of a more substantial herbivore. There is no greater pleasure than chewing the tar-rie meatiness from a chop bone. Even more so if the chop has been cut by a proper butcher who has taken the time and effort to slice and saw between the ribs in the traditional manner. The supermarket version appears to me to have been sliced to a predetermined thickness regardless of the animals anatomy. Presumably cut by some sort of food grade band-saw fed by a meat cutting technician,  leaving curves of bone and splinters hanging onto the meat by the good will of a few straggly bits of connective tissue - while we are on the subject why can we no longer have pork chops with a slice of kidney still attached, now that was a real chop treat.

The morning after the night before – what to do with the leftover hind leg (right one I think) sitting on a small plate in the fridge? Pea and rabbit risotto, that sounded like reasonable combination, lunch sorted. Now I am a self confessed risotto geek and believe all risottos should be made in the Milanese style before adding the extras as the prepared risotto is left to rest or sprinkling them over the dish just before serving but as with the pie I'll go through all that some other time. The point is I very carefully removed the cooked meat from the bone before cutting it into small bite size pieces and to be fair I was impressed with the amount of meat I got from this single leg – not something I noticed the night before. Had the Chianti clouded my judgement the previous evening. I'm thinking maybe this is the way to treat rabbit, cook it, pick it, use it, perhaps a game pie or something similar. No no no, despite every effort I still ended up picking bits of bone out of my mouth – where are they coming from?

Would I buy another rabbit? ... Not even to have with fava beans!

Well as Dr. Hannibal Lecter said "I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner".