Coniglio a Porchetta

I didn’t set out to roast the Easter Bunny for Easter lunch.  It just kind of happened.  Though I have to admit I find the idea of serving rabbit at Easter to be mildly amusing in a perverse kind of way.  Anyway, you can blame it on Bones.

I’ve been homesick for Italy lately (can you be homesick for a place you’ve never actually lived?).  I wanted an Italian Easter, a Buona Pasqua.  I was thinking lamb.  But Bones has been dreaming about a roasted rabbit we ate at the home of our Milanese neighbor, Enrica.  So, rabbit it was.  Audrey won’t eat anything that was cute when it was alive so she didn’t care if it was rabbit or lamb, she wasn’t having any of it.

Honey photo by my honey, Audrey

I tend to save the multi-course three hour lunches for occasions when we have guests.  It always seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for just the three of us.  But really, if I’m not willing to go all out for the two people I love most in the world, what’s the point?  There aren’t any dinner guests more important to me than Audrey and Bones.  They deserve my best effort.

We were at the table for four hours.  Lunch started with an antipasto of salami, mortadella and pecorino fiore sarde with a drizzle of honey.  Next came tagliatelle with a meat ragù.  Audrey ate about a pound of salami and two bowls full of pasta since she wasn’t having any rabbit.

Antipasto - another Audrey photo

I was going to do like Enrica and roast the rabbit very simply in a little olive oil, rosemary and garlic.  But at the last minute I remembered the supply of wild fennel pollen sent to me by Jeff, the owner of the houses we’ve rented in Torre Alfina and Benano.  I also had half a head of fennel left over from a salad I’d made the day before, so I ended up with coniglio a porchetta, rabbit cooked in the manner of porchetta (roast pork stuffed with fennel and garlic).  I’d totally forgotten that we’d eaten coniglio a porchetta at the Osteria al Pugnalone in Acquapendente until Bones carved it and I recognized the dish.

Given everything that had come before, I kept dessert on the light side and served mixed berries macerated in a lovely pink Prosecco and topped with a dollop of crème fraîche.  Our friend Lynn, who stopped by to wish us Happy Easter and have a glass of wine, stayed for pasta, rabbit and dessert.  Lynn had already had a three course lunch down at Frenchman’s Cay.  Audrey said the ragù tasted just like those she’s eaten in Italy.  High praise indeed.  And Bones said it was one of the top ten meals he’s had in his life.  What more could any home cook ask for?

Coniglio a porchetta, fennel roasted potatoes and oven-browned tomato

Coniglio a Porchetta

My Italian is somewhere between poor and nonexistent.  Add in the various regional dialects and accents and I’m lost much of the time.  Why, for instance, is this dish referred to as coniglio a porchetta in the area of northern Lazio/western Umbria that we frequent but called coniglio in porchetta everywhere else?  I surely don’t know.  And the fennel pollen I have that came from an agriturismo near Acquapendente is labelled finocchio fiore selvatico but everyone else in Italy calls it fiore di finocchio.  I think a trip to Italy to research these and other pressing linguistic questions may well be in order.

1 rabbit, about 2-3 pounds, with its giblets

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 large round bulb of fennel, chopped

1 shallot, peeled and minced

2 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

2 whole cloves garlic, peeled

1 slice pancetta, finely diced

a pinch of red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon dried wild fennel pollen

3 sage leaves, finely chopped

salt and fresh black pepper

1/4 cup olive oil mixed with 1 teaspoon fennel pollen for brushing the rabbit and the potatoes

1 pound small new potatoes, cut in half

Preheat the oven to 300° and grease a roasting pan with a little olive oil.  Remove the giblets from the rabbit and chop them into small pieces (they may still be attached to the rabbit – if they are, just cut them out carefully).  Set the giblets aside.  Pat the rabbit dry and set him aside also.

Our Benano neighbor harvesting fennel pollen

Put the 2 tablespoons olive oil and the shallot in a small skillet and sweat over medium heat until the shallots are slightly softened, about 3-4 minutes.  Don’t let the shallots brown.  Add the chopped giblets and cook until they’re no longer pink, about 4-5 minutes.  Add the sliced garlic and red pepper flakes and cook for one minute, then add the pancetta and cook for another 2 minutes.  Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the chopped fennel, whole garlic cloves, chopped sage and fennel powder.  Season with a little salt and freshly ground pepper.

Stuff the fennel mixture into the belly of the rabbit and either sew the abdominal cavity closed with a large needle and thread or use a wooden skewer to close the cavity.  Tie the legs together and rub the rabbit all over with some of the olive oil/fennel pollen mixture.  Sprinkle salt and pepper over the rabbit and put in the roasting pan.  Toss the potatoes with some of the olive oil/fennel pollen mixture and some salt and pepper.  Scatter the potatoes around the rabbit in the roasting pan.

Stuffed and trussed rabbit

Roast for 2 hours, turning the rabbit over halfway through the cooking time.  If the legs look like they’re in danger of getting too brown or drying out, wrap them in aluminum foil.  Remove the rabbit from the roasting pan and let it sit for 15 minutes before carving.  Carve the rabbit crosswise into slices (a husband with a big cleaver is a good tool for this job) and serve with the roasted potatoes.  Any leftovers are quite nice served cold with a little green salad alongside.  Serves 4-6.  If you’re not serving the rabbit as part of an extended Italian-style meal, you may want to increase the amount of potatoes to make a heartier dish.

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