Seasonal game (1)
There is a farm shop in the area! It is not actually in Tadley but in a six-house-hamlet that calls itself ‘Little London'(!). As soon as we could, we beat a path to its door. It was not strong on greens, but it has seasonal game. So for the time being, our Sunday dinners focus on that. And with fresh (if overpriced) vegetables from the farmer’s market in Islington, we are all set on the food front:
Rabbit Flamade, Grünkohl (braised curly kale), Fried Potato and Celeriac
Rabbit Flamade
1 rabbit, jointed; ca. 35 g butter; 25g plain flour; 2 tbsp vegetable oil; 6 shallots, quartered; 100 g salted pork belly or 50 g smoked bacon cubes; 1 stick celery; 1 leek (white only); 1 turnip (if handy); 2 carrots or 100g baby carrots; dash wine/cider vinegar; 400 ml beer (ale, trappist, lager); 1 tsp thyme; 2 bay leaves; 3 juniper berries; 2tbsp parsley; 2tbsp Dijon mustard; 125 ml single cream/crème fraîche; 1 crusty white roll
Season rabbit and fry to seal in oil. Set aside and deglace the pan with a slug of vinegar. Meanwhile sweat the onion and bacon cubes in 25g of the butter with a small dash of oil (to prevent burning). When glassy add the herbs and lightly crushed juniper. Fry another minute then stir in the flour to make a roux. Add the beer/ale gradually, stirring furiously to beat out any lumps. Add the remaining veg and rabbit, stir in 1 tbsp mustard and simmer gently 40 minutes. (This will do for a young, stable-bred animal. For a geriatric wild rabbit, simmer 2 hours or longer, until tender, and either discard the vegetables and replace with fresh or remove after 30 min and add back during the last stage). Stir in the cream and adjust seasoning.
Transfer the dish into an ovenproof casserole so that the sauce barely covers the rabbit and veg (reduce if there is too much liquid). Slice the roll, spread with butter and mustard on one side and place, buttered side up, on top of the casserole. Heat through at 180° C 20 minutes or until the bread is golden.
Grünkohl
This is a delicacy in Germany—which I failed to appreciate during my childhood. In the north of the country, curly kale is referred to as the ‘Friesian Palm’. To get the best flavour out of this type of cabbage, it is always braised with at least one kind of sausage and often with smoked pork chops (Kassler) on top, in which case it is served as a main course with fried potatoes. As this dinner is rich already, I remove the meat stuff before serving and keep it with the rest of the cabbage for lunch on the next day. I can’t get the proper sausages in Tadley, but the Kabano is very likely used for similar purposes in Poland and a Saveloy sausage rounds it off nicely.
2 heads curly kale; 1 Saveloy sausage, skinned and roughly chopped; 1 ham hock (ideally, some streaky bacon will do at a pinch); 3 small or 1 ordinary Kabano sausage; 1 onion; 1 cup stock; 1 tsp mustard for seasoning (if not served with mustardy rabbit)
Strip the leaves from the stems, wash and blanch in rapidly boiling water for 5 minutes, then plunge into ice-cold water. Squeeze out excess and shred. Fry the onion (and bacon, if using) until glassy, stir in the cabbage and sausages/hock, add stock, cover and simmer gently 1h (1½ hrs if using hock).
Fried Potato and Celeriac
Par-boil the peeled potato and celeriac chunks until just tender, chill and cut into 5mm-1cm slices. Heat oil/dripping in a couple of large, heavy pans and fry until browned on both sides, turning only once (if not using non-stick pan the slices will come loose easily once they are properly sealed on one side).
Denni