And so it begins ...
I purchased three rabbits today. First one will - of course - be featured in a Catalan dish: Conill amb xocolata (or Rabbit with chocolate).
It was not the smartest of choices. Once I told my family what we have for dinner, my wife responded that she loves the dish as her grandmother always cooked it. There was not the tiniest bit of a chance for expectation management from this point ... her grandma was a perfect cook and spend essentially a week prepping for the big (~15 people +) multi-course, hour-long Sunday lunch, that usually ended around 22.00h ... but hey - no pressure 🙄
I triangulated the recipe from my two favourite Catalan cookbooks, leaning more toward the English version that would result in a lighter dish. I don’t care for fennel, and substituted a star anise.
Rabbit was chopped up and intestines reserved for a later point in time.
Other ingredients ...
Floured rabbit was browned, removed, and aromatics added. Vi ranci was added, evaporated, topped up with the stock and rabbit simmered in the mixture for a little less than an hour.
As a little reward the flash-fried liver was consumed by the busy cook, together with a highball ...
In the meantime the Picada was prepared. Think Catalan pesto to thicken sauces. Garlic, bread, almonds and pine nuts were roasted in olive oil and then pureed.
Once the rabbit was cooked tender, the chopped up chocolate was added & melted and the Picada added. Simmered for 5 more minutes and done !
Conill amb xocolata was served with Trinxat (mashed potatoes with savoy cabbage, bacon, garlic and olive oil - think Catalan colcannon).
Enjoyed with a fruity red from the Mont Sant denomination ...
Little one enjoyed !
Manöverkritik: the rabbit was nicely cooked, consistency of the meat was good. It was a bit to chocolatey - my wife explained that grandma‘s version contained less chocolate, even though I used the lower amount of both recipes. The sauce had a slight bitterness to it - not unpleasant, bit noticable. I suspect the chocolate brand and will look for different options next time. The combo of conill amb xocolata with the Trinxat worked great and helped with the bitterness of the sauce. The dish will not make it into my regular rotation, but I will give it another go with another brand of chocolate ...
