Sweet and Sour Rabbit, or Cunigghiu a la Stimpirata: Pam writes:
I'm trying to locate a recipe for a dish my father remembers from WWII in Sicily -- rabbit cooked with chocolate. Can you help?
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 75 minutes
Ingredients:
- 2 wild rabbits
- Flour
- 6 ounces (150 g) pitted green olives, chopped
- 2 tablespoons capers, rinsed
- An onion, sliced
- 3 ribs celery, chopped
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 1/2 ounces (35 g) pine nuts
- 1 1/2 ounces (35 g) raisins
- 2 carrots, cut into rounds
- 1 cup white wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Ground hot pepper or pepper to taste
Preparation:
Continuing with the introduction,
Pino Correnti ties the recipe to a Siracusan sweet-and-sour rabbit recipe, and this invites a brief aside. Though it's now relatively rare, at least in the North, this sort of sweet-and-sour combination was quite common in the past. It derives from the need to make meats palatable by soaking them in vinegar, in the days before refrigeration, and from the custom of using sugar as a sort of "sweet salt" (as opposed to sea salt), which the knights returning from the Crusades brought home with them from the Holy Land.
In any case, Mr. Correnti says the Siracusan recipe originally called for hare, rather than wild rabbit, and that it has now spread throughout Sicily. To serve 4 you'll need the ingredients listed above.
Chop the rabbits into 6-8 pieces each, discarding their heads. Dredge the remaining pieces in flour and brown them well in hot oil, turning them often lest they burn. While you're browning the rabbit, heat a little more oil in a second pot and cook the onion and celery until the onion has wilted and turned golden, then add the capers, olives, carrots, raisins, pine nuts, and bay leaves. Transfer the browned rabbit pieces to the second pot, season them with salt and pepper, dust them generously with sugar, and sprinkle the vinegar over them. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook the rabbit until it's tender, by which time the vinegar should have for the most part evaporated, so as to produce a thick sauce.
In the summer months, people customarily also add diced fried eggplant, or bell pepper fillets, after blistering them over a burner to remove the skins.
How to transform this into Cunigghiu 'Nciculattatu, Rabbit with Chocolate?
Omit the olives and capers called for above, adding, in their place, 2 more bay leaves, three cloves, 1 tablespoon of wild fennel seeds, and, when you add the vinegar and sugar, 2 ounces (50 g) shredded bitter chocolate.
Pino Correnti ties the recipe to a Siracusan sweet-and-sour rabbit recipe, and this invites a brief aside. Though it's now relatively rare, at least in the North, this sort of sweet-and-sour combination was quite common in the past. It derives from the need to make meats palatable by soaking them in vinegar, in the days before refrigeration, and from the custom of using sugar as a sort of "sweet salt" (as opposed to sea salt), which the knights returning from the Crusades brought home with them from the Holy Land.
In any case, Mr. Correnti says the Siracusan recipe originally called for hare, rather than wild rabbit, and that it has now spread throughout Sicily. To serve 4 you'll need the ingredients listed above.
Chop the rabbits into 6-8 pieces each, discarding their heads. Dredge the remaining pieces in flour and brown them well in hot oil, turning them often lest they burn. While you're browning the rabbit, heat a little more oil in a second pot and cook the onion and celery until the onion has wilted and turned golden, then add the capers, olives, carrots, raisins, pine nuts, and bay leaves. Transfer the browned rabbit pieces to the second pot, season them with salt and pepper, dust them generously with sugar, and sprinkle the vinegar over them. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook the rabbit until it's tender, by which time the vinegar should have for the most part evaporated, so as to produce a thick sauce.
In the summer months, people customarily also add diced fried eggplant, or bell pepper fillets, after blistering them over a burner to remove the skins.
How to transform this into Cunigghiu 'Nciculattatu, Rabbit with Chocolate?
Omit the olives and capers called for above, adding, in their place, 2 more bay leaves, three cloves, 1 tablespoon of wild fennel seeds, and, when you add the vinegar and sugar, 2 ounces (50 g) shredded bitter chocolate.
