Though the recipe calls for polenta, this stewed rabbit will work equally well with pappardelle, or strip-style pastas, for example broad tagliatelle. To serve 4 you'll need:
Prep Time: 1 hours, 00 minutes
Cook Time: 2 hours, 00 minutes
Ingredients:
- A rabbit, chopped into eight pieces
- The rabbit’s liver, or a chicken liver, minced (optional)
- An ounce of pancetta, minced (optional)
- A small stock of celery, minced
- A small onion, minced
- A small carrot, minced
- A bunch of parsley, minced
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- A half a cup tomato sauce
- Salt and pepper
- Boiling water as necessary
- Polenta, either store-bought or made following the directions below
Preparation:
To begin with the polenta, you will need about a pound and a half to feed 4. If you buy it, heat it over a double boiler or in a microwave oven when the sauce is near done. If you're making it, follow the instructions on the polenta page.What to do with the rabbit? Begin by washing it and patting it dry.
Mince the rabbit’s liver, pancetta, onion, celery, carrot, and parsley, and sauté the mixture in the olive oil over a medium flame till the onion’s translucent. Season to taste and add the rabbit pieces, stirring often till they’ve browned. Then sprinkle the rabbit with water and the tomato sauce and reduce the heat. Gently simmer the rabbit till it’s cooked (at least an hour), adding more water if necessary to keep the sauce from drying out.
While the rabbit's cooking, prepare the polenta per the link above. When the polenta is done, turn it out on a cutting board (in Northern Italy people use wooden disks about 18 inches across for this) and serve the polenta in slices, using a taut thread to cut them, with the rabbit, and another vegetable on the side. In this case there will be no need for a first course.
This recipe also works very well with pappardelle, the inch-wide wavy strips of pasta popular in the area between Arezzo and Siena (Tuscany). When the rabbit's almost done set a pound of pasta to boil in lightly salted water (no polenta in this case). Use most of the sauce, along with some grated cheese, to season the pasta, and serve the rabbit with the remaining sauce as a second course, with the vegetable that you prefer and a tossed salad.
Note: you can also make polenta or pappardelle with hare or boar. Hare is tougher than rabbit, and usually requires marinating. Make the marinade by bringing three cups of water to boil with a half cup of vinegar, a couple of laurel leaves, one or two minced shallots, a bunch of parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Boil the mixture for five minutes. Once it is cool, pour it over the meat, and let the meat stand in the refrigerator for 12 to 16 hours. The same marinade will work well with wild boar; figure about a pound of boar, and marinate it for 16 hours before cooking it per the instructions above.
The wine? A moderately aged Chianti Ruffina would be nice, as would a Carmignano, or a Brunello, or a Barolo.
