Rick Stein’s Rabbit Stifado

MUNCH RATING: 1/5

I knew I wanted to make a stew with the rabbit I bought from the Farmer’s Market in Epsom last Sunday, but as I’d never eaten or cooked it before I looked for some guidance. Even though I don’t like Rick Stein, I decided to have a flick through his Mediterranean Escapes book, which has been sitting unused on the bookcase since Steve’s Mum bought it last year. I spotted a recipe for Rabbit Stifado and thought it would be perfect because I had a packet of stifado herb and spice mixture that Steve’s sister brought me back from Halkidiki.

The herb mixture contained:

• thyme
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• bay leaves
• black peppercorns
• allspice

So I just replaced all of the spices in Rick’s recipe with about a third of my packet and the flavour of the sauce tasted authentically Greek. But the rabbit itself was a huge disappointment. It was really tough and dry and lacked flavour. What a waste of a fiver! I was a bit dubious about the short cooking time of the recipe and I REALLY regretted not cooking this in my Tefal slow cooker! The sauce was also very watery, so I added some cornflour at the end to thicken.

I served the stew with rice and potatoes as that’s what was served to us in the restaurants we visited in Greece. I sautéed the potatoes with garlic and rosemary and they were the best part of the meal!

So now I have even more reasons to not like Rick Stein! Here’s Rick’s recipe if you want to make the mistake of making it!

• Serves: 4
• Cooking time: 55 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 large rabbit, weighing about 1.5kg, jointed
• 6 allspice berries
• ½ teaspoon black peppercorns
• 3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon flour
• 5 garlic cloves
• 50ml red wine vinegar
• 600ml red wine (I used Merlot Pinot Grigio)
• 400g chopped tomatoes
• 5cm piece cinnamon stick
• 6 cloves
• 2 fresh bay leaves
• 50g currants (I left these out as I’ve never had stifado with them in!)
• 15g butter
• 450g small pickling onions or shallots*
• ½ teaspoon sugar
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Season all the rabbit pieces with salt and pepper.
2. Grind the allspice berries and black peppercorns into a powder.
3. Heat the olive oil in a flameproof casserole. Dust the rabbit in the flour and knock off but reserve the excess. Add half the rabbit pieces to the casserole and fry over a medium-high heat until nicely browned on both sides. Remove to a plate and repeat with the rest of the rabbit.
4. Return all the rabbit to the pan with the garlic and the remaining flour and cook for 1 minute.
5. Pour over the vinegar and leave it to bubble for a minute or two, then add the red wine, tomatoes, ground spices, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves, currants, 1 teaspoon salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Bring to the boil, part-cover and simmer for 55 minutes or until the rabbit is very tender and the sauce has reduced.
6. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a medium-sized pan, add the pickling onions or shallots and the sugar and fry, shaking the pan now and then, until they are richly golden all over. Then add 2 Tablespoons water, cover and cook gently for 10 minutes until tender. Uncover, raise the heat and cook more rapidly for a minute or two, shaking the pan until the onions are covered in a shiny glaze. Season with a little salt and pepper and set aside.
7. When the rabbit has had the required cooking time, stir in the caramelised onions and simmer for a further 5 minutes.

* I bought a packet of baby onions and to make it easier to peel them, I blanched them in boiling water for about 1 minute, so the skins came away more easily.

Epsom Farmers Market: Corn on the cob, Rabbit and Parmesan Cheese

Today Steve and I went to the Farmers Market in Epsom as I love going to food markets. The market is on the 1st Sunday of every month. It’s quite a small market, with maybe around 20 stalls. The majority of stalls sell meat and you can pick up the more unusual cuts and types of meat that supermarkets don’t have. For example, we bought a whole rabbit for £5, which I’m excited about cooking as I’ve never tried it before. I’m going to make Stifado (Greek stew) as Steve’s sister bought us a seasoning pack on her last holiday to Halkidiki.

There were other stalls selling cheese, fruit and vegetables, bread and cakes, honey, eggs and olives. Most of the stalls had taster samples, so we tried some South African sausages (which were nice) and some bacon (which was not so nice!).

I bought some hard Italian type cheese which is like Parmesan, so hopefully that will be nice as it cost £3.50 for 200g. I’ve just checked the name of the cheese and it’s called Twineham Grange Farmers’ Hand and it’s made by Bookhams Fine Food in Sussex. It was mentioned on the Hairy Bikers Food Tour of Britain when they visited East Sussex. On the show the makers said they’re not allowed to call it Parmesan, so they called it Farmers’ Hand because if you say it quickly it sounds like Parmesan! But they’re rebranding it now to “Not Just A Pasta Cheese” to encourage people to eat it in various ways. Apparently it’s sweeter and more palatable than real Parmesan, but I will be first trying it in a Spaghetti Carbonara, so we shall see!
Update on the cheese – I’ve tried it in a risotto, cauliflower cheese and dauphinois potatoes and it’s just as good as real Parmesan!

Anyway, I bought a bag of carrots for £1, 3 leeks for £1 and 4 corn on the cobs for £1.

I didn’t get to pick my own corn, so I ended up getting a mixed bag of different shapes and sizes. Two of them weren’t fully grown and the biggest one had deformed looking kernels. There was only one that looked ‘supermarket worthy’, but would it taste any better than the ugly ones?


Well I have to say that they all tasted pretty much the same. They were nice and sweet, probably due to being picked recently. It was quite satisfying removing the husks and silks just before cooking. I placed them in a pan and covered with cold water (I didn’t add salt as this makes the corn tough). I brought the water to the boil, then boiled them for 5 minutes, until it was easy to remove a kernel from the end. Then simply smother with butter and a good grinding of black pepper and enjoy!

The Farmers Market in Epsom is on the First Sunday of every month. Opening hours: Sun 9am-1.30pm