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Rabbit Braised with Garlic

Name: Rabbit Braised with Garlic
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 75 min
Total time: 95 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Ukrainian
Ingredients: 1300 g Rabbit, jointed; 12 cloves Garlic cloves; 200 g Onion; 150 g Carrot; 200 g Sour cream, to serve; 150 ml Dry white wine; 500 ml Chicken stock; 40 g Plain flour; 30 g Unsalted butter; 40 ml Sunflower oil; 4 sprigs Fresh thyme sprigs; 2 leaves Bay leaves; 10 g Fine sea salt; 3 g Ground black pepper; 15 g Flat-leaf parsley

Rabbit jointed, floured and browned, then braised slowly with a dozen cloves of garlic, white wine and stock, finished with sour cream.

Prep: 20 min
Cook: 75 min
Difficulty: Easy

About this dish

Rabbit is the meat of a household that kept a hutch rather than a herd, which is why it turns up all over village Ukraine and almost never in a restaurant. It is lean to the point of being unforgiving: cook it fast and it goes to string, so the whole tradition around it is slow liquid and fat added from outside — here sour cream. The garlic is not a seasoning at this quantity. Whole cloves braised for an hour go sweet and spreadable, and they are half the dish.

Not vegetarian because of Rabbit, jointed, Chicken stock
Contains gluten because of Plain flour
Contains dairy because of Sour cream, to serve, Unsalted butter

Ingredients

4servings

1300gRabbit, jointed
12clovesGarlic cloves
200gOnion
150gCarrot
200gSour cream, to serve
150mlDry white wine
500mlChicken stock
40gPlain flour
30gUnsalted butter
40mlSunflower oil
4sprigsFresh thyme sprigs
2leavesBay leaves
10gFine sea salt
3gGround black pepper
15gFlat-leaf parsley

Instructions

Joint the rabbit, season it with salt and pepper, dust with flour and brown it in the oil for about 12 minutes.
12 min
Tip: Brown in batches with room between the pieces. Crowded, they steam in their own juice and you lose the only browning this very lean meat will ever give you.
Lower the heat, add the butter, then the sliced onion, carrot and the whole peeled garlic cloves, and cook 8 minutes.
8 min
Tip: Leave the cloves whole. Chopped garlic burns to bitterness over an hour of braising; whole, it poaches in the liquid and turns sweet.
Pour in the wine, add the thyme and bay, and let it bubble for 5 minutes, scraping the base of the pan.
5 min
Tip: Everything stuck to the pan is flavour, and wine is the solvent for it. Five minutes also cooks off the raw alcohol, which otherwise stays sharp all the way to the table.
Return the rabbit, add the stock to come most of the way up the meat, cover, and simmer very gently for 45 minutes.
45 min
Tip: Barely a tremble on the surface. A rolling boil tightens the muscle fibres and squeezes out the little moisture rabbit has.
Lift out the rabbit, stir the sour cream into the sauce off the boil, return the meat, and scatter with parsley.
5 min
Tip: Off the heat, always. Sour cream added to a boiling pan splits into grains and liquid, and once it has split there is no bringing it back.