Episode 4: In Which He Braises a Rabbit

Having purchased a rabbit last week from Bubier Family Farm at the Portland Winter Market last week, I knew I had to make kouneli stifado.

Stifado is the Greek word for any braised dish. Of the various meats that can be put into a stifado, I have always found rabbit to be my favorite. And of the many ways that rabbit can be prepared, I have always found stifado to be the most appealing. A particularly good recipe can be found at Peter Minakis' blog, Kalofagas. My only modification is that I like to add a a heaping tablespoon of honey along with the diluted tomato paste and seasonings.

Mise en place

Browning the bunny

Ready for the oven

Another set of modifications is forced on me by the fact that the oven in my current place runs hot. To prevent burning, I had to leave the lid of my cast iron dutch oven on throughout, and take it out 20 minutes early. As it was, the sauce had reduced to a syrupy decoction, just this side of burning and as viscous as rubber cement. I salvaged it as a sauce by removing the rabbit and deglazing the pot with an additional cup of water. In retrospect, I should have added an additional cup of liquid at the beginning, wine or water or half of each, and set the oven at 325 instead of 350.

Braised bunny with sludge

Definitely accompany with good feta, lightly dressed with olive oil and crumbled Greek oregano, and some bread. Other traditional Greek accompaniments might be lemon potatoes or horta (braised bitter greens), or this time of year maybe even a beet salad. Instead of those, however, I sided it with some non-traditional but still delicious reheated leftover celeriac puree.

Ready to eat

Some notes on sourcing the ingredients for Portland-area readers:

• I've already given credit to Bubier Farm for the rabbit, which was delicious. The unfortunate thing about buying meat at a farmer's market of course is that it all comes frozen, either uncut or not necessarily cut in the way you prefer. That left it to me to thaw the rabbit and cut it into pieces, which I did serviceably but not perfectly. In Queens I was spoiled by Ottomanelli Butchers--when they had fresh rabbit in stock, I could always count on Jerry, Joe or Josh to cut it up just the way I like, with the precision of a veterinary surgeon. I have yet to find a solid butcher shop around here. Local readers, please leave recommendations!
• If you have a good quality Greek honey in stock, by all means use it. A good Greek honey will lend any dish to which it is added an ineffable sense of place, redolent of what my Yiayia's backyard smelled like thirty years ago, when the winds would catch the scent of wild herbs on the slopes of Mount Hymettus (before it became part of yet another overgrown suburb of Athens). But this is not necessary, as there is plenty of good local honey to be had in Maine. The dark wildflower honey from Tom's Honey & More, also available at the Portland Winter Market, leaves me just as speechless.
• Dodonis Feta (one of the best Greek brands available in the U.S., made from a blend of sheep and goat milks), the Taygetos brand Greek oregano (packed in bunches) and Harlaftis Nemea 2009 were all purchased at Lakonia Greek Products in Saco. Because Hot Librarian doesn't drink, and I don't drink much, when buying wine to cook with I usually go for the cheapest one available that will not be so bad for me to have a glass of with dinner. The Harlaftis was the cheapest available at Lakonia, and it was good (though still tannic enough that it could have used another 6-12 months of bottle aging). Feel free to splurge on something better. Greek wine is not mandatory, but in general look for robust, hot-climate reds (e.g. an Australian Shiraz, a southern Italian nero d'avola, etc.)
• What I did not get at Lakonia was the olive oil. At $80 a gallon, their house brand (made at the owner's own olive farm in Greece) is not within my budget. Not the way I go through olive oil. Unfortunately I was still making do with generic olive oil from Hannaford. However, I am looking forward to sampling the Lebanese olive oil I picked up today at Al-Ahram Halal Market (630 Forest Avenue, Portland), which generally seems to be the go-to place for any Middle Eastern specialty ingredients I may desire.