Author Archives: Back Yard Farmer - Dunedin

Rabbit Coratella with Artichokes

2016-01-13 - Rabbit and Artichoke Coratella

 

Old recipes that use meats that are these days regulated to the garbage or pets abound in Italy. The problem is that offal is not generally obtainable. Slaughtering my own animals has huge advantages!

With a few rabbit carcasses in the freezer, we decided to make a dish with the coratella (heart, liver, spleen, kidneys and lungs) incorporating some of the artichokes that we now have in abundance. Mrs BYO created the dish and did the cooking, serving it with the staple of the North, polenta. It was a delicious meal and we have all of the rabbit left to feed the more fussy members of the tribe.

CORATELLA CON CARCIOFI

As many cleaned rabbit offals as you can get your hands on, but at least 4, cut in small pieces

1/2 cup rabbit fat. The fat surrounding the kidneys are the best. alternatively use 1/2 cup olive oil

4 large garlic cloves roughly chopped

2 tablespoons of finely chopped rosemary

white wine

4 or 5 artichokes, cleaned and prepared, cut into 4 sections. All the green leaves of the artichoke must be snapped off and the choke removed, leaving only the tender white parts of the leaves and the heart

salt and pepper

Heat the fat in the pan on a low heat until the fat runs clear and only small bits of browned fat remains in the pan. Saute the garlic and rosemary in the fat until the garlic is golden. Add the rabbit, season with salt and pepper and brown everything quickly over a high heat. Sprinkle with a bit of wine. Lower the heat and cook the rabbit for about 10 minutes, regularly sprinkling the meat with wine, then add the artichokes. Sprinkle wine generously and cook uncovered, turning the artichokes often. When the artichokes are tender, serve  hot with polenta or bread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mean Rabbit Shredder

Following my very unsuccessful rabbit breeding effort I have placed the plump doe with a hired stud and am hoping for the best (cost me a lot of money). Now for the Buck that was actually a Doe (I think) I have allocated a new abode and re-categorised her as a Breeder.

After everything calmed down I again became suspicious about the sex of the ‘new’ breeding doe and decided to first consult Google on how to sex your rabbits and came across a very handy you tube demonstration. I shared the article with a couple of my friends to get their opinion and was warned to be careful as an angry doe can be vicious and mean (like most females). Me being a seasoned farmer and rabbit breeder, I  caught the lady for inspection – the long and the short of the story is she disapproved of the procedure and now look at my arm!!

 

2015-12-11 - Rabbit shredder

Rabbit Stalemate

2015-12-03 - Stalemate

I have never thought that my first biology lesson in year four would haunt me 60 years later. Anyhow my rabbit operation is very simple. I breed for the pot only and have three does and one buck that I mate once every two months. Every doe breeds twice a year which gives me 6 – 8 rabbits after sales and replacements for the pot every 8 weeks. I replace the older does every so often with a good specimen out of a litter and replace the buck with a new purchase as frequently as required to introduce new genes. When a friend of mine said that she has a New Zealand White buck and we should swap bucks as our breeding animals were not related, I thought it a great way to introduce fresh genes into both our operations. She was kind enough to bring her young man around and took my old buck away. I had a doe to breed and, as I normally do, I placed the buck with the doe for 25 days. When I moved the buck to his own cage I was certain that some days later I would have a litter. Last week it was time to slaughter and I butchered all the young ones except a very good looking young doe that I kept for breeding. The following day the buck’s 25 days of pleasure was up and I removed him from the doe. I noticed that even though still young, he did not put on much weight during the 25 days. At first I thought he must have over worked himself and I was now hoping for large litters, but to my dismay on closer inspection found my buck to be a doe. Inspecting the real doe, of course she was not pregnant but very nice and plump. I now have four empty does and no buck – what a farming fiasco!  My teacher in year four told me that if you want to breed farm animals you should have boys and girls – only now do I understand what he was saying.  I am now desperately searching for a virile buck – four lovely young ladies waiting!

Coratella

2015-11-27 - Coratella

Coratella is the Italian name for all the organs in the thoracic (chest cavity) and the dish includes the heart, lungs, liver, spleen and kidneys of either a young lamb, chicken or rabbit. We were fortunate to obtain a suckling Boerbok lamb from a farmer close to Dunedin and I went to the farm and slaughtered it myself, hence had access to all the organs normally discarded and seldom eaten in New Zealand. Coratella is also the name of the resulting dish.

Clean the organs making sure that all the blood is washed off, then cut it into cubes about 2 cm square. Dice two onions and two cloves of garlic and fry in some butter and olive oil until well soft. Ad all the organs, except the liver, and fry well over medium to high heat. While frying, ad a chopped red chili, two bay leaves, salt and pepper. When the meat is almost done ad the liver and turn the heat to high. Ad a handful of chopped parsley and fry for three to four minutes until livers are done, but still pink on the inside. Ad one glass of dry white wine and let it evaporate. Serve immediately with polenta.

Do not forget the good home made dry red wine!

ENJOY!!

Rare Coturnix coturnix

9

Every so often one finds a unique bird in your flock. At present I am breeding four different breeds of Coturnix coturnix, one which is a White breed that was originally developed by the A & M Texas University as a dual purpose bird. The Americans claim their Jumbo Browns to be 450 – 500 g in body mass, but trying to locate such birds or breeders of these large birds appears to be very difficult – I do not know why the Americans want to hide these. Anyway, unlike our friends from abroad, I am not trying to breed the Coturnix coturnix bigger and bigger (if I wanted to breed big birds, I would have started with ostriches), but have put my mind on breeding two of my breeds to be about 280 – 300 g for the females and 220 – 250 for the males – a milestone I have already reached in New Zealand after two and a half years of intensive selection. Hence, I am presently selecting against too big birds in these breeds and made my primary selection criteria egg production, feed conversion, fecundity and body conformation. This is a good size eating bird, which is still an effective producer of both meat and eggs. But back to my unique bird – the A & M Texans are white, but almost always have a black or brown spot somewhere on the body. It is a breed I have had little experience with, but breeding more than 1200 Whites over the past two years, I have bred only three ALL WHITES with no other coloring at all. The first two did not make it on my selection criteria and color not being important to me, they only made it as far as the stock pot. This third all white I have will definitely make it to the breeding pens as he is a magnificent specimen and weighed in at 230 g on 33 days of age. This is my UNIQUE BIRD! (I presume there are other breeders in New Zealand with strains of the pure whites)