Haydenei

Since our traditional Christmas Eve Dinner was Raclette I used the Holidays to cook a little bit more elaborate. I didn’t search for recipes beforehand, but got my inspiration while cooking. This wasn’t an easy task since the refrigerators are fully loaded just before the Christmas Holidays. As opposed to the rest of the year, you have a great variety to choose from and my choice fell in a pair of legs of rabbit. I also added ingredients which I probably would need for a good recipe. When I arrived at home, I searched how to prepare rabbit, since I had never tried to cook that before.
Along my search I also looked up what the difference between rabbit and hare was, because I wasn’t sure of that. Here in Germany some pet owners call their rabbits also hare and the English jackrabbits is in reality a hare. In general hares live in the wild and rabbits can usually also be held as pets. In Germany hares are a protected species and can only be hunted during specific times. There are more differences, have a look here for example.

After some more searching I found a recipe for a braised rabbit. But since you have to marinate the legs for a day in red wine, it’s nothing for right away cooking. And due to the red wine, the meat also changes color to violet and that also accounts for the strange color in the picture of the two legs in the saucepan.
After the meat was marinated for 24 hours and afterwards braised for another 1 ½ hours you get a real tender and delicious meat.

Ingredients:

• 2 legs of rabbit

For the marinade:

• 100g onions
• 70g carrots
• 70g celeries
• 70g leek
• 1 Tablespoon parsley
• 500ml red wine
• 2cl Cognac or Calvados
• 2 bay laves
• 1 garlic clove
• ½ Teaspoon pepper corns
• 1 orange (juice of)

Also

• 100g streaky bacon
• 50g onions
• 50g carrots
• 1 Teaspoon flour
• 1 Teaspoon salt
• 2 Teaspoons paprika (noble sweet)
• 2 cloves
• 1 twig of thyme
• 1 Orange

Step 1:
Wash and dry the legs of rabbit and remove surplus skin. Place the legs in a plastic bag, add the chopped vegetables, the sliced onions, pressed garlic clove, crushed peppercorns, bay leaves and parsley. Pour in wine, cognac and orange juice and put the closed bag in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

Step 2:
Take the meat out of the marinade and dry it. Strain the marinade and keep the liquid for later use. Chop the bacon and render it in a heavy sauce pan. Roast the legs from all sides.

Step 3:
Add chopped carrots and onions and sprinkle with flour. Roast it for a few minutes and add marinade, salt, paprika, thyme and clover. Let it simmer for 80 minutes until the meat is tender.

Step 4:
Remove the meat, strain the sauce, add the orange as juice or slices and let it boil up. Add the meat and let it simmer for another 5 minutes. Serve with side dishes.