I was given a lovely, lean, young rabbit that was hunted yesterday. We decided to have it for lunch today, without marinating or ageing it. We had not shopped in a while and had used up all the home grown garlic, so Mrs BYF asked me to pick a few handfuls of all the herbs I have growing in the garden. This is a great pleasure to do, because herbs grow very well in Dunedin. The resulting dish, which she called ‘Herbed Rabbit’ was one of her memorable efforts. The meal cost us the price of a serve of polenta and the 2 Italian sausages (made by me) that were leftovers from a birthday party.

Recipe: Herbed Rabbit ( you can use chicken also)

1  rabbit skinned, cleaned  washed and cut up. Save the livers, heart and kidneys for

    killer pasta sauce later.

1  small leek, sliced finely, including the green tops

1  bowl (about 4 handfuls) of all the fresh herbs you have, chopped fine. I picked

    rosemary, thyme, marjoram,  sage, oregano and chives

    Salt, pepper and a tiny pinch of chili flakes

    A splash of red wine

    Juice of 2 lemons

    A splash of apple cider vinegar (made by me)

2  leftover Italian sausages. I have given the recipe elsewhere on the blog but you may

    want to just buy some

Brown the rabbit pieces thoroughly in 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Use a deep pan that can fit the rabbit without overlapping. Remove the browned rabbit from the pan and keep warm. Deglaze the pan with the wine. Add the leeks and herbs and fry for a few minutes. Put the rabbit pieces and the sliced sausages on top of the herbs, add the vinegar and lemon juice and a bit of water to the pan and cover. Cook at medium heat, turning occasionally and adding a few spoonfuls of water to prevent sticking. The completed dish will have no water in the pan, just the rich green herby sauce. You can blend the sauce briefly if your don’t like the bits of herb under your teeth.

The taste of this dish made with what we had on hand surpassed our expectations by far. We finally used up a huge amount of the herbs, this time of the year and attained our goal of eating great food to almost no cost.

Enjoy with some heavy homemade red wine!