Coniglio alla campagnola/Country style rabbit

Ingredients:
1-1/2 to 2 lbs. rabbit
2 cups dry red wine
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
1 small white onion
1 bay leaf
1 Tbsp. fresh chopped Italian parsley
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. In a large bowl, better deep than a wide, place the pieces of rabbit.

2. Chop the carrot, onion and celery finely and add them to the rabbit along
with the parsley and a bay leaf.

3. Now add the wine and mix it all in a bit.

4. Cover and let marinate in the refrigerator for 12 hours.

5. Remove the rabbit and filter the vegetables from the wine.

6. Brown the rabbit in a pan in the olive oil and salt and pepper the rabbit.

7. Once you have browned it on both sides add the vegetables and a bit of
the wine from the marinade.

8. Cook covered at a medium heat. If the juices start to dry add a little more
wine from the marinade.

9. Continue cooking for one hour or so, or until done.

10. When it is ready place the rabbit in a serving dish and then remove the
bay leaf and pass the vegetables through a food mill.

11.Serve the rabbit with polenta and the sauce you made from the veggies

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Dimmi con chi vai e ti dirò chi sei.

Cioa Giacomo, I've been wondering about your recipe. I love to cook and new recipies tend to haunt me. I grew up on rabbit actually, you know the Easter bunny story and then there was the next year (we now had 60 of them !).... Now it is impossible to find. Perhaps a chicken dark meat like leg or thighs ? Do you know ? Thank you for taking the time to post, anyways.

Great receipt. Thanks for posting.

You can find rabbit but it is not that easy. I found one in Magruders in Washington DC. Naturally more expensive food stores that sell healthy products would have rabbits and other some what unusual products.

On a separate note, here is an "Italian" receipt of tuna. I tried it and it was GREAT.

Ingredients
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup limoncello
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 teaspoons chopped chives
1 teaspoon chopped rosemary
1 1/2 lbs yellowfin tuna steaks, about 1 inch thick
salt and pepper
1 1/4 lbs asparagus spears, trimmed
lemon slice
5 cups mixed baby greens
1/3 cup thinly sliced shallot
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions
1Whisk together olive oil, limoncello, and herbs.
2Reserve 1/4 cup of the mixture and put the rest in a 1 gallon zip top bag.
3Add tuna to the bag and chill for 2-4 hours, turning over occasionally.
4Discard marinating liquid in the bag and season tuna with salt and pepper.
5Grill asparagus and lemon slices until tender; season with salt and pepper.
6Sear tuna on very hot (greased) grill for 1-2 minutes per side for rare (cook longer if you like).
7While tuna in cooking. . . In a large bowl, toss lettuce, shallots, lemon juice and reserved marinade; divide among 4 plates.
8Slice tuna against the grain and arrage it over the lettuce on each plate.
9Serve asparagus on the side with lemon slices as garnish.

Giacomo, the recipe worked well with chicken legs and it is a keeper for me ! Perhaps someday in my local markets I will find sophisticated foods such as rabbit and tuna steaks (fresh not in a can ) Grazie mille per il Suo aiuto.

To find rabbit you probably need to go to a specialty store that sells foods that are eaten outside of the USA. I am lucky because I live very close to an Italian-American neighborhood (Federal Hill) where you can find stores that sell things such as rabbit as well as imported goods from Italy. Justin Demetri: Have you ever been to Federal Hill? It's kind of like RI's version of Boston's North end.

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Dimmi con chi vai e ti dirò chi sei.