Saturday, November 27, 2010

Wild rabbit with Spanish olives

All of a sudden, it's hunting season in Andalucia. It's a bit of a pain if you go into the country, as the place is teeming with guys in camouflage and guns taking potshots at anything that moves, but on the upside stalls all over the market are suddenly offering rabbit, hare, partridge, venison and pigeon, which makes a welcome change from beef and pork.



When I went along to my butcher's the other day, a whole section of his counter was packed full of cute-looking furry bunnies, nestling in among the pots of manteca colorada, so I thought I would try a wild version of my rabbit stew with olives. It seemed only right to honour the wild rabbit with some of Matias' fat verdial olives instead of the tinned black ones I had used the previous time.

Ingredients
1 rabbit, cut into joints
plain flour
olive oil
6 sticks of celery
1/2 onion
2 carrots
3 cloves of garlic
250 g of marinated Spanish olives, together with their marinating liquid
4 ripe tomatoes
a splash of white wine
1/2 teaspoons of salt
2 teaspoons of dried rosemary

Method
  1. Peel and finely chop the onion, slice the celery, peel and slice the carrots, peel and roughly crush the garlic.
  2. Heat plenty of olive oil in your pressure cooker (with the lid off, obviously!), dust the rabbit pieces in plenty of flour, and brown them on both sides in the hot oil. Remove the browned pieces to a plate.
  3. Gently fry the onion, celery, carrot and garlic in the oil.
  4. Return the browned rabbit pieces to the pot, add the tomato, olives (including any marinade liquid), rosemary, salt and a splash of wine, and put the lid on. Bring up to pressure, reduce heat to minimum and cook for 20 minutes.