Rabbit with Onions and Prunes

Tonights dinner was inspired by recent brief trips to Morroco and France. In Marrakech I had a lovely lamb with onion and prune tagine heaped with saffron-sweet caramalised onions. It was so good I had it two days running.   I wondered if it had been inspired by a classic French dish – Rabbit with prunes.

Although I have cooked with Rabbit successfully before in Barley Stew  and with Chorizo and Mushrooms  ,however my last encounter did not go well , so badly in fact it got binned it smelt bad .  So it was with some trepidation I experimented with this dish. Jointing the rabbit is hard it smells pretty strong and meaty.

The results were worth the risk ,  tender melt in the mouth rabbit,  soft onions and sweet prunes with just a hint of alcohol from the brandy.  Dish wipingly delicious

Rabbit with Onion and Prunes
1 large rabbit jointed
5 onions finely sliced
10 strands of saffron
50ml of french brandy
25 dried prunes
2 pints of boiling water
1 tbsp of butter

1. Fry the onions in half the butter on the hob in a cast iron pot, cover and occasionally stir . Cook for  long enough to allow the onions to soften & caramalise.
2. Remove the onions set aside , add the rabbit  to the pot , turning the pieces to allow to brown on all sides
3. Pour  boiling water over the saffron in a mug
4. Return the onions and rabbit into a cast iron cooking pot
5. Pour over the saffron water ,  brandy and add the prunes
6. Cover , place in the oven and cook for at least 2 hours at 180degC
7. Allow to rest covered for 30 minutes before serving  .

Serve with warm french bread and peas

Loving Lille

After Marrakech another French-speaking long weekend . I had been really enjoying London foodbloggers posts on trips to Lille , Brussels &  Paris as part of  Eurostar Little Break Big Difference Campaign , then London Eater announced  two free Eurostar  tickets – if you could say why you were most deserving ? Well  I had promised my mum a girly weekend &  I commute through St Pancras everyday jealously eyeing the people heading to more glamourous destinations than the East Midlands  so I made my pitch  .  I was delighted when I was picked by the lovely people at We are Social. A few week later following a few grumpy looks from my abandoned  boyfriend,  I was meeting my mum at St Pancras station   we passed over the champagne bar in favour of Prosecco at Sourced.

Once we boarded the lovely Eurostar train &  settled in with another glass of wine and magazines , we even got some delicious food in fact I so busy munching away  I managed to miss the point we went into the tunnel.

We arrived the other side super-relaxed  and I was ready for a packed weekend of mooching and feasting . We had a lovely two days wandering around  Lille is very beautiful lots of grand &  higgledy piggeldy buildings & markets.

But first some dinner  I was delighted to see bone marrow on the menu, a first for me but lovely on french baguette , later I had langue de Beouf ( Beef tongue, braised in wine ) I was chuffed  it tasted very similar to dish I cooked at home , though more piquant with  capers and a little chilli.

You cannot really start the day in France without coffee and croissants, even though I am an exclusively  tea drinker  at home  I was really craving plenty of bowls of milky coffee.

Saturday night was Moules and Frites, Lille is very close to the Belgium border, so the food has that edge to it , plenty of garlic , celery and parsley , with cooking liquor to dip your chips in . Accompanied by Belgium Beer Chimay.

My favourite day in France though is Sunday when it seems everyone hits the patisserie and flower shop to buy goddies and then heads off to visit their Mum . The store with the biggest queue though was Patisserie Aux Merveilleux de Fred , where you can watch them make signature Meringue cakes

The markets in France are something to aspire to and I think England is getting there but still nowhere near the variety and they get it every week , where we get Farmers Markets once a month , I can see why people hop over on the Eurostar and stock up eveything is so vibrant and everyone is as food obsessed as I am.

I am feeling culinarily  inspired following  my trip and after a longer than planned gap the blog juices are flowing again. Merci France and thankyou agin Eurostar Little Break Big Difference Campaign , London Eater and  We are Social.

Marrakech

Somehow desite not having summer holiday this year I managed to book two long weekends in two weeks Marrakech and Lille , I picked Marrakech because I was thinking of my stomach. Marrakech is a massive culture shock it is impossible to walk down the street without being hassled dragged into shops or asked to smell something.  Though it’s hard to browse it’s real experience, pottery , leather & spices.

The food was delicious expected tagines slow cooked  with plenty of preserved lemon , saffron ,olives and spices. The ingredients vary slightly meat is chicken or lamb cooked with vegetables, turnips, onions , courgettes , peppers and carrots.  The spices cardamom, clove, cinnamon,  paprika, coriander, cumin, nutmeg, peppercorn, and turmeric forming Ras el hanout.  One stallholder told me his had 24 spices in it. Spices are sold whole then ground to your specifications ensuring they are as fresh as possible.

Moroccan Bread is delicious,  walking down side-streets you see tiny bakeries almost under the floor and everywhere there are people driving scooters or pushbikes,  loaded with Moroccan loaves of bread, which is delicious, a little sweet like pizza dough. Lovely with jam for breakfast though pancakes were popular too.

Moroccan Salad , I am not sure how authentic it is, but it was served everywhere a nice counterpoint to a hot tagine .  Light and fresh salad of tomato , green peppers, onion,  garlic , coriander and lemon juice

Grilled Meats mixed lamb or chicken, cutlets and kebabs all spiced and barbequed, sticky fingers ensure but worth it.

As mentioned before I found shopping pretty stressful and the markets in Marrakech itself look pretty European . However one day we went walking in the Atlas Mountains & our driver  stopped off at Ismil a small weekly market visited once a month by inhabitants of the surrounding Berber villages .

Men travel for hours by  donkey , men only women stay in the homes.  tiny smokey restaurants cooked the meat for the men who ate before journeying home. Amazing to see the halal butchers , complete with goat heads on the floor of the market to show how fresh the meat , lots of offal . You got the sense it hadn’t changed for hundreds of years and showed no signs of changing .

Around the river in the Atlas mountains ever inch is used for farming , apples , walnuts , olives every inch terraced and harvested by hand.

After the massive activity in Marrakech , it was really lovely to sit on a sunny terrace with a cup of sweet mint tea and some delicious honey-almon pastries. These pastries are everywhere often served by the 10pcs or kilo.

In fact the one slightly difficult thing about Marrakech is it is dry city, though alcohol can be found it tends to be at horrible touristy restaurant nights complete with bellydancing. In fact walking in the main square , you are constantly approached by people saying “Beer ,Wine , Nice Restaurant…?” Although I think a drink with a Tagine would be nice it’s better to do without.

Pumpkin , Sausage and Sage Casserole

My halloween always involves carving a pumpkin. Cutting a lid &  scooping out some of the flesh and seeds , and carving a rough approxiamation of a scary face   and setting it in the window lit by a single tealight.

However being a food-obsessive my favorite thing finding new things to do with the leftover pumpkin in fact one of my first ever blog posts is about the Death of a Pumpkin
which features Pumpkin Risotto, Roast and a Laksa.

On Halloween  I made some Roasted Pumpkin Seeds . This is very simple just ensure you remove any strands of pumpkin from the seeds, spread them out on baking sheet sprinkle with just a little sea salt and smoked paprika . After just 15 minutes in  hot oven ( 190degC) they are delicious.

The next days the pumpkin lid was a little scorched so I discarded it but the rest of the pumpkin  was perfect for trying a  Saturday Kitchen there was a nice recipe for Sausage, Pumpkin and Sage Casserole . This is think would work with any squash , most of the ingredients we keep in the storecupboard and my sage plant is still clinging to life.

The only change I made to the recipe  adding  a dash of sherry which works well with pumpkin. I am cooking a lot with sherry sweeter than wine is seems to give a instant slow cooking taste to quicker dishes

After cooking the pumpkin and beans produce a thick stew they will definitely be a regular ,  think it would work well with chicken thighs too.