Hasenpfeffer

Cerasuolo

Rabbit in dutch oven

Sunday afternoon and I’m listening to Sylvie Vartan, I can’t help but be happy while listening to her music, and also after the awesome weekend I had.  Some great wines were opened, but that’ll be part of the post and part of my upcoming wine blogs on Champagne Taste.

Friday night I made something really fun - hasenpfeffer.  I’ve had rabbit before but not quite the same style, as last time I had it was at a South Western French themed restaurant.  And while I usually cook southern Italian by instinct and I love working with French classic recipes, this time I was slightly less confident as it was a German/Swiss type dish and I never cook German.

Rabbit and vegetables marinating

So 2 days before the rabbit was to be cooked, I marinated it, with the help of a recipe from a friend.  I ordered the rabbit from d’Artagnan, fresh, and it was labeled young farm raised American rabbit (which means it’ll be less gamey, and American rabbits are all white mean, whereas the typical hasenpfeffer is made from European wild hare, which is generally dark meat).  The marinade consisted of dry red wine (I used a Romanian Pinot Noir), good red wine vinegar, water, sugar, pickling spices, juniper berries, kosher salt, lots of black pepper, and sliced onion and carrot.

On the day the rabbit was to be cooked, I removed the rabbit loins (which I had cut into pieces and removed the veil) and 4 rabbit legs, and seasoned them with kosher salt and black pepper and coated them with flour.  I also removed the onions and carrots and set them aside.  Then I strained the berries and spices out of the marinade, and set the liquid aside, to be used for deglazing, cooking, and sauce.

Hasenpfeffer - plated

I started rendering fat from salt pork but it was getting a little too smoky and decided to supplement the rest with olive oil.  I browned the rabbit pieces in a dutch oven and then removed the rabbit, deglazed with a bit of the marinade, and then cooked the onions and carrots in it.  I then returned the rabbit pieces to the pot and covered with more of the marinade (reserving still more of the liquid for the sauce), and at this point you can also add currant jelly (which I’ve read in recipes), but I opted for lingonberry.  Cover the dutch oven and instead of simmering on the stove, I cooked it in the oven for about 2 hours on 375 degrees F.

Meanwhile, I boiled a pot of egg noodles to be plated underneath the rabbit pieces, and I made the sauce, which was the remaining marinade liquid, made into a roux with a handful of flour whisked in over a fairly low heat.

Hoch Ybrig and Cambozola Blue

Also while the rabbit cooked, in keeping with the theme, I went with 2 cheeses - Hoch Ybrig, a firm cow’s milk cheese from Switzerland with nutty characteristics, and Cambozola Blue, a soft triple cream subtle blue cheese from cow’s milk from Germany.  Both are awesome in texture, flavor, and aroma, and I brought out leftover open samples of German Riesling from Nahe and Elbling from Mosel.

Humagne Rouge

The wine I chose for the hasenpfeffer was a Humagne rouge, a red from AOC Valais in Switzerland, which is what I like to call and “honest” expressive wine with a unique identity, stony mineral notes and bright acidity with an almost elegant rusticity (if that makes any sense) and red fruit notes, some ripe rich fruit, wild berry and red plum skin.  That was a delicious pairing, and the other red we opened was a Cerasuolo di Vittora from Sicily, a blend of Nero d”Avola and Frappato, with notes of mostly red fruits, berry, cherry, and volcanic mineral typical of Sicilian reds, and fascinating characteristics of raw pine nuts and savory herbs and tarragon - another awesome match with the rabbit (which was absolutely delicious and fun to look at before eating it).  Textures, flavors, and aromas came together to make for a great culinary experience in my very own kitchen - just the way I like it.