Passport & Plate - Fried rabbit with cherry beer and cheries sauce
Belgium | Tuesday, March 11, 2014 | 5 photos
Ingredients
rabbit meat
marinade (oil, vinegar, white wine, onion, garlic, salt and peper, thyme)
500 ml kriek cherry beer
green onions
2-3 garlic cloves
100 gr butter
olive oil (for frying the meat)
100 dried cherries (or cranberries, I tried both ways)
100 blackberries (I didn't have fresh so I used some blackberries kept in sugar)
for the mashed celery
2 big celeries
2 potatoes
butter
milk
salt
How to prepare this recipeI strongly advise you to marinate the meat at least one night.
Now, for the mashed celery, you just need to follow the same steps as you would with a clasic mashed potatoes. Put the celery and the potatoes in a large pan, add water and salt and let them boil for about 30-40 minutes.
In a large pan pour some olive oil and a small piece of butter; after the butter has melted, add the meat and 250 ml of kriek cherry beer. Cook for about 15-20 minutes on both sides. After the meat is done, cover it with aluminium foil and let it rest while preparing the sauce.
Use the same pan (you wouldn't want to throw away what's left in there); add a spoon of butter and let it mel. Chop the green onion, smash the garlic cloves, pun them in the pan and stir for one minute. Add the cherries (or the cranberries), the 250 ml of kriek cherry beer left and let them cook for about 10 minutes.
Put the celery and the potatoes in a blender, add milk, butter and salt and blend them well.
When that thing in the pan starts looking like a proper sauce, add the blackberries, season with salt and peper and let them cook for about 3-4 minutes. Now it's done!
Put the meat on a plate, near the celery piure, add the cherry beer sauce and serve with a nice glass of red wine. I'm serious with the wine; you don't want the meat to think that a dog ate it! :)
The story behind this recipeI live in the same city that my father and step-mother do; on Sundays we usually have lunch together. Most of the time, I do the cooking. No, it's not that Cinderella story, they don't ask me to cook, I do it because I love it. :)
They visited Belgium about two years ago and when they returned, they couldn't stop talking about the food there. Among different dishes, there was some rabbit meat with cherry beer sauce. After I tried (and succeeded) cooking some bear and them some boar stew, they thought fried rabbit with cherry beer sauce shouldn't be a problem. The only problem was that I didn't know how it should look or taste. So I improvised all the way.
They liked it so much, that I had to do it three Sundays in a row. Maybe they were just being nice, but I need to say that I have never seen my step-mother licking her fingers like she did those times. :)
