Run rabbit run rabbit, run, run, run… It’s Rabbit Casserole

Be very afraid of the Wicklow Hunter’s Gun, gun, gun…

An image, supposedly of the Wicklow Hunter supplied to me recently.

Sorry Bunnies, when the Wicklow Hunter is out and about with his trusty .22, you can be sure that there’s going to be a date with destiny. Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Dates! Their lovely sweetness could go nicely with the slightly dry, gamey flavour of rabbit. Let’s prepare a Date with Destiny and Wild Wicklow Rabbit Casserole.

Youngest daughter who made a bit of a fuss over eating ‘Bambi’ is away in Canada so this is my only opportunity to bring ‘Thumper’ into my cross-hairs (or is that cross hares). I will be in trouble when she gets home.

It took me 20 minutes to set up the shot. I took it and started chopping onions. Then I remembered the wine and the bacon…

There is a pretty long list of stuff to get the best out of wild rabbit. You could refer to the photograph but you will notice that I neglected to photo either the bacon or the wine. Here’s what you will need:

• 2 wild Wicklow rabbits
• 6 carrots
• 3 onions
• 4 stalks of celery
• 3 rashers of streaky bacon
• half a litre of good chicken stock
• 1 glass of good red wine
• 12 to 15 dates
• Flour for dredging
• Parsley
• Thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• Salt and black pepper
• Cooking oil

The Hunter may have no compunction about  shooting the rabbits. He did take pity on me and delivered the rabbits skinned and largely cleaned.

Don’t be squeamish. Where do you think meat comes from? Unlike spagetti, it does not grow on trees.

It just left me the job of chopping them into suitable pieces. Youngest daughter will not approve of this. Not one bit.

Sorry, the gratuitous bunny for the chop shot. I had to do it. I just had to…

It is pretty easy to prepare. There are numerous videos online covering the topic. There is a good one here.

This is what you might get if you buy it pre-packaged. It saves on gore. Less fun all the same.

Then I chopped the bacon and fried it in the pan (skillet). Then I chopped the onions.

The trio of onions, celery and carrots is a cornerstone of italian cooking. They have plenty of cornerstones.

Then I chopped the celery.

I can see you vegetarians squirm at the picture of the poor celery hacked into little pieces.

Then I chopped the carrots and put all three into the casserole and sweated them off for 20 minutes or so. At this stage, I added the bacon, bay leaves and a bunch of thyme.

A fantastic base for any casserole. You gotta love these colours.

I let them sweat away while I browned the rabbit in seasoned flour.

A nice close up of the rabbit browning in the pan. Dusted in plenty of seasoned flour. This will help flavour and thicken the sauce.

I used the wine to deglaze the pan and added this and the stock to the casserole. I also added a half pint of water.  When I got this to the boil, I put it in the oven, covered and slow cooked it at 120C for four hours. At this stage, I added some chopped parsley and the dates and stirred.

An action shot (too much action if you look at the flying parsley). I used the timer and sprinting around the island unit to get it.

The sauce was not quite thick enough, so I transferred to the hob and reduced for 15 minutes. The end result, served with simple steamed potatoes looked like this:

A little bit of extra thyme to decorate the plate did not go to waste.

We swilled a couple of glasses of a mid-bodied french red with the casserole. (Don’t judge us). We had to have something and this worked well.

No caption needed as you can read the label from here.

All that remains is for me to show one more shot of the casserole and to stand firm on my decision to chop the bunnies. I have a month or two before she comes home. Plenty of time to come up with a reasonable excuse for youngest daughter. Any suggestions gratefully received, please. Oh, please…

Note the dates. The second helpings had loads of vegetables and less meat. Yes, there were second helpings. Mmmm…