Rabbit Ragu with Pappardelle

As Stephen mentioned yesterday, we planned this dish when we knew we would be in receipt of a rabbit which meant we could start the preparation while cooking yesterday’s dinner. After removing the meat we needed for the curry, we were left with the bones and the legs; the bones went into the stock pot and we decided to add the legs too so that the meat would be cooked and ready for tonight. Once the leg meat was tender, we removed them from the stock, shredded the meat and threw the bones back into the pot to continue cooking.

We made a simple ragu by frying onion, celery, garlic and carrot which we deglazed with a glass of white wine before adding the rabbit stock, some tomatoes, tomato paste, herbs, salt and pepper and some milk. In went the rabbit and there it sat for about three hours until the whole lot had reduced and thickened.

After about an hour, I tasted it and it was too sweet. I’d forgotten that we had sundried tomato puree which is a lot sweeter than ordinary and I’m not sure the carrot helped either. I added some Worcestershire sauce and a little more salt which helped to balance it but it wasn’t perfect.

We didn’t have any parsley so chopped up some rocket instead which worked quite well, not so much that it over-powered the flavour of the rabbit but just enough to lift the dish. Just before serving we added a drizzle of truffle oil which added another flavour level and further addressed the sweetness issue.

It was good and we both enjoyed it but not as much as the ragu we made last year which didn’t involve tomatoes (and was one of our favourites of 2008). There’s another rabbit waiting for us in my mum’s freezer though so we can hopefully re-visit that dish soon.