04/01/2021

Rabbit in Creamy Cider Sauce with Bacon, Garlic & Tarragon

Name: Rabbit in Creamy Cider Sauce with Bacon, Garlic & Tarragon
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 195 min
Total time: 230 min
Ingredients: 2-3 tbsp olive oil; 4 rashers smoked streaky bacon (roughly chopped); 40 g plain flour; salt & pepper; 1 wild rabbit, jointed (see Recipe Notes for video link); 2 medium onions (roughly chopped); 6 cloves garlic (thinly sliced); 500 ml cider (medium or dry); 300 ml double cream; 1 small bunch parsley, leaves only (roughly chopped); 1 small bunch tarragon, leaves only (roughly chopped)

Rabbit in a creamy cider sauce, slow cooked with bacon and garlic, then finished with fresh tarragon, is an easy, delicious classic.

Sustainable, free-range and relatively inexpensive, wild rabbit has good flavour without being overly gamey.

Gentle braising results in this lean meat becoming beautifully tender and taking up the flavours of the rich sauce.

Eat with crispy roasted or sauteed potatoes and green vegetables for an exceptional meal.

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WILD RABBIT: SUSTAINABLE & DELICIOUS

I think wild rabbit is such an underused and underrated meat. And I’m as guilty as anyone in not cooking with it often enough.

But perhaps that’s because rabbit is not as widely available as it should be.

Once a staple on British tables, people seem to have got awfully squeamish about this plentiful, sustainable, free-range, tasty and relatively inexpensive meat.

By the way, I’m not talking about farmed rabbit here, just the wild variety. Farmed rabbit is often raised intensively which, besides the obvious animal welfare considerations, is likely to result in poor quality meat.

A wild rabbit, on the other hand, will have had a free-range life, feeding on grass, herbs and all sorts of plants. This natural, varied diet results in a much better flavoured meat.

In terms of taste, I can see why wild rabbit meat is often compared to chicken. It is similar, but certainly not identical. You’ll find the texture is firmer too.

If you’re worried that wild rabbit is very gamey in flavour, you needn’t: it’s usually quite mild.

BUYING & PREPARING RABBIT

A decent butcher who deals in game should be able to fix you up with a wild rabbit. Making friends with someone local who shoots isn’t a bad idea either. You can also buy rabbit online from wild game specialists.

I bought the rabbit you see here from The Port of Lancaster Smokehouse via Denstone Hall Farm Shop. As well as attending various farmers’ markets, Port of Lancaster also sell online. At the time of writing, dressed English wild rabbits are £4.99 each on their website.

Unless you’re buying from a butcher, who’ll probably be happy to do the job for you, you’ll have to joint the rabbit yourself to make my Rabbit in Creamy Cider Sauce with Bacon, Garlic & Tarragon.

But it’s really not difficult. If you can dismember a roast chicken, then you can joint a rabbit.

Watch this video on how to joint a rabbit.

Rabbit in Creamy Cider Sauce with Bacon, Garlic & Tarragon

This is a slow-cooked recipe, so you’ll need to get started on it 3-4 hours before you want to eat.

However, the hands-on time is probably only around 30 minutes.

Because wild rabbit is a lean meat, I start off by cooking some smoked streaky bacon in a little olive oil. As well as adding important fat to keep things moist, it will flavour the fab sauce.

Once the bacon has started to colour, it’s removed to a plate.

Then we dust the rabbit pieces in some seasoned flour and brown those in the bacon fat.

Don’t crowd the pot or the rabbit won’t brown properly. Do it in batches if you need to.

As each piece becomes lightly golden, put it aside with the bacon.

The next step is softening onions and garlic in the pot, adding more olive oil as necessary.

Then it’s in with some decent cider and bringing things to a simmer. Make sure you scrape up all the tasty, browned bits from the bottom of the pot!

With a lid on, the dish can now go into a low oven.

You then have precisely nothing to do for one and a half hours. Just leave the rabbit to slowly tenderise and imbibe the onions, garlic and cider.

After this time, the rabbit in its dark sauce should be getting pretty tender. But we’re not finished yet.

The next stage is to pour in double cream then pop the casserole back in the oven for thirty minutes.

After the half hour is up, stir in lots of chopped tarragon and parsley (reserving some for later) and return to the oven for another fifteen minutes.

TIP: if you can’t get fresh tarragon then I wouldn’t bother with dried. A better substitution is a generous tablespoon of French, Dijon, or wholegrain mustard.

After fifteen minutes, check whether both sauce and rabbit are done to your liking.

You’ll need to use your judgement rather than exact timings in the next step where we finish the dish.

FINISHING THE DISH

To test whether the rabbit is done, take a couple of forks and see if the leg meat will easily come away from the bone. If it doesn’t, pop the lid back on and give it another twenty minutes or until done to your liking.

Even with a lid on, the sauce will have reduced, thickened and intensified. However, I like to reduce it even further once I’m happy with the doneness of the meat.

I turn the oven temperature up and pop the casserole back in, this time with the lid off. Ten to twenty minutes later, I have an exceptionally rich, noticeably darker sauce that’s incredibly good.

All that’s left to do then is check the seasoning and stir in the reserved herbs.

Clamp a lid on and leave to rest for about ten minutes while you finish preparing the accompaniments.

SERVING

I think the soft rabbit and creamy sauce goes superbly with crispy potatoes. You could sauté some potatoes but, as the oven’s on anyway, I prefer to roast them.

Here I boiled halved new potatoes until almost completely tender then roasted them in olive oil and butter. While the rabbit was resting, I cranked up the heat to get them golden brown.

Dark green leaves, along with a few peas, are another perfect accompaniment to Rabbit in Creamy Cider Sauce with Bacon, Garlic & Tarragon.

These days, for all sorts of greens and cabbage, I find the most convenient way of cooking them is to put the shredded veg in a big metal colander then pour over boiling water from a kettle. Run through cold water from the tap to stop the cooking then drain or squeeze until almost dry. Simply reheat by sauteing in a little butter and/or olive oil when you’re ready to serve.

We ate the meal you see above for our New Year’s Eve dinner this year. And I have to say it was the best I can remember.

Tender rabbit cloaked in an intense smoky, creamy, herby garlic sauce with its hint of cider, plenty of golden potatoes to dip in and those iron-rich greens with peas on the side.

Which just goes to show that wild rabbit is fitting for a special occasion and not just for the traditionally humble dishes of a simple stew or pie.

GET COOKING WITH WILD RABBIT

I would love to see more home cooks enjoying wild rabbit. Sustainable and tasty, it has so much going for it.

Some people are perhaps squeamish, thinking of pretty, cuddly bunnies. However, these are wild animals, not pets.

And anyway, I think cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens are beautiful creatures too. But that doesn’t stop me eating their meat so long as it’s been produced to high welfare standards.

For people who DO eat meat, I find it hard to see any reasonable objection to wild rabbit.

And when you can create wonderful dishes like Rabbit in Creamy Cider Sauce with Bacon, Garlic & Tarragon, what’s stopping you?

Have you made this recipe?

Let me know what you thought by leaving a comment & don’t forget to rate the recipe.

4.5 from 2 votes