Tag: Rabbit marinade

RABBIT with cloves, cinnamon and red wine (CONIGLIO DA LICODIA EUBEA)

Rabbit with cloves, cinnamon and red wine is a traditional Sicilian dish from the rural town of Licodia Eubea, and it reflects the deep and ancient roots of Sicilian cuisine. Sicily’s food culture has been shaped over thousands of years by the Greeks, Arabs, Normans and Spanish, each civilisation leaving layers of flavour, aromatic spices, and agricultural techniques that still define the island’s cooking today. Licodia Eubea, in the province of Catania, sits among fertile hills once shaped by Greek settlers (hence Eubea, a reference to the Greek island of Euboea) and still known for agricultural abundance and rustic, slow-cooked dishes.

Recently in Australia, rabbit has been plentiful, and I have been cooking it quite often. The expression “breeding like rabbits” is especially fitting given Australia’s ideal conditions—good rainfall and abundant vegetation supporting fast and extensive breeding. When possible, I use wild rabbit. Apart from having a stronger flavour, it is satisfying to think that using wild rabbit contributes to reducing an invasive population that causes significant environmental damage. Wild rabbits destroy native plant species, compete with local wildlife and livestock for food, and their grazing contributes to soil erosion across large areas of rural Australia.

I bought wild rabbit in Borough Markets in London and cooked this recipe in our accomodation Airbnb

This recipe came from Pino Correnti’s authoritative volume Il Libro D’oro della Cucina e dei Vini di Sicilia. Like many Sicilian recipes, the instructions are brief and quantities rarely specified, but with experimentation I have arrived at a version that works beautifully. The character of the dish comes from marinating the rabbit in red wine with warming spices: cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves and garlic. For wild rabbit, I marinate overnight; for farmed rabbit, 3 hours is usually sufficient.

Rabbit in the Catania Market

Over time I have adapted the recipe to my own taste, sometimes adding small onions or whole mushrooms to enrich the dish. On one occasion I served it with fregola—a Sardinian toasted pasta, cooked like couscous. It was delicious, though perhaps unconventional in the eyes of both Sicilians and Sardinians!

One rabbit (just under 1 kg) is ideal for four people.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 rabbit, jointed
  • 1½ cups red wine
  • 6–8 cloves
  • 4–6 bay leaves
  • 2 garlic cloves, halved
  • 1–2 cinnamon sticks
  • ¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste, dissolved in a little water
  • 3–4 sprigs fresh rosemary
  • 6–8 fresh mint leaves
  • Whole onions, 1–2 per person

PROCESSES:
Clean the rabbit and cut it into manageable sections at the joints.

Marinate it in the wine, some of the oil, bay leaves, cinnamon and cloves and turn it occasionally. Wild rabbit: overnight. Farmed rabbit: 3 hours

Remove the pieces of rabbit from the marinade and drain well. Keep the marinade with the bay, cinnamon and cloves for cooking.
Cut small slits into the flesh of the rabbit and insert the garlic into the slits (the recipe just lists garlic in the list of ingredients).
Add the rest of the extra virgin olive oil in a large frying pan and sauté the pieces until golden. Remove them and set aside.
Reduce the heat, add the whole onions to the oil and toss them around until golden.
Add salt and pepper, the diluted tomato paste, mint, rosemary, the wine marinade with the bay leaves, cinnamon and cloves (if you want to accentuate the taste of the aromatics you may wish to discard the old bay leaves and cloves in the marinade and add new ones).
Cover with a lid and simmer it gently until it is cooked (wild rabbit will take twice as long to cook as the farmed rabbit and you may need to add extra liquid).
Remove the lid and evaporate the juices if necessary.

Serve with extra fresh mint leaves.

rabbitlegs-250x250

This rustic and aromatic rabbit dish brings together the historic flavours of Sicily—spice-led cooking introduced by Arab rule, wine reflecting local agricultural tradition, and slow simmering methods that speak of rural kitchens and generous family tables.

One way to cook Rabbit like a Sicilian