Braised Rabbit with Speck and Mushrooms

Having been out of the kitchen for a few days I was keen to get in and do something today, sitting around doing nothing has been so boring, and I was feeling pretty good today, still a little stiff but the pain was bearable.  Now 4 hours later I am wondering if maybe I went a little too hard, the back has gone into a bit of a spasm and is very uncomfortable, hopefully a good night’s sleep will fix that and I will be right in the morning.

I started out slowly really, knocking together some individual servings of Panettone Pudding, very easy dessert to put together that always goes down well here, these little beauties are basically a classier version of bread and butter pudding, and they’re very tasty and very more-ish!

For the main course tonight I went with a Manu Feidel’s recipe for Braised Rabbit with Speck and Mushrooms, from his cook book “Manu’s French Kitchen”.  I love cooking and eating rabbit and this recipe had lots of interest in that there are several steps to go through, where you are building flavours all the way to the table and the flavours on the plate were fantastic.  My son Michael, has told me a couple of times of a rabbit stew he likes to cook, that actually fulfils two course’s of a meal, firstly a soup from the juices the rabbit is stewed in and then the main course being the rabbit and vegetables.  On tasting the sauce in this dish, I thought that had there been a little more of the juices you could do the same with this dish, the juice or sauce was so full of flavour, I will confess, I had to lift the plate to my lips after I had finished the meat and veg tonight the sauce was that good.

Manu’s serving suggestion for the meal was to do a creamy mash potato or polenta and whilst I was tempted to go with his suggestion, I decided to use up some of the vegetables that may have otherwise been wasted if they were not used soon, so we enjoyed out rabbit with roasted Kipfler potatoes, sweet potatoes and baby carrots and some steamed Brussels sprouts, the perfect meal for a cold winter’s night!

One aspect of tonight's dish I loved was when I had too add brandy to the pot and then ignite it, I think seeing a brandy flame in a pot fills any cooks heart with joy, I know it did mine!

And how's this for a gourmet lunch tomorrow?