Wabbit

At the end of January, we had a weekend of rabbit.  The food arranger has been falling behind on the work, so we don't have a step by step visual story of this rabbit.  At Borough Market's Wyndham Farm chickens, we purchased a pretty huge French farm-raised rabbit, which the butcher cut up for us, whack whack whack, giving us the head too.  Now what to do with this wabbit?  We have been relying on random recipes that we find on the web, but this time we thought we should get serious, and so we looked for cookbooks at our neighborhood book store, the London Review of Books Shop.  Here we found our beloved Roast Chicken and other stories, by Simon Hopkinson.  We have a copy at home, but it seemed the right investment for advice on English ingredients.
From Hopkinson, we were intrigued by a recipe for "Roasted Leg of Rabbit with Bacon and a Mustard Sauce."  Requires a French rabbit - check.  Good bacon - check. Whipping cream - we had double cream, which turned out to be check mate.
R. had to bone the two hind legs, and then stuffed the cavity with an herb garlic butter.  We didn't have the necessary tarragon, but used parsley and chervil instead.  Then the legs are wrapped with 5 rashers each of streaky bacon.

These roast in the oven until the bacon is "crisp and brown."  This step took lots longer than indicated by the recipe, so we are still worried about regulating its temperature.  Finally, though, they seemed done:  the boned end is sliced, and the shank with the bone placed next to the slices, like this:

Then we made the mustard cream sauce, but the double cream does NOT reduce in an attractive fashion, and we started over with some creme fraiche we also had on hand.  The end result was pretty fabulous: the rabbit was succulent and flavorsome with the herbs and butter.  To accompany, we prepared, as instructed, plain boiled potatoes, but instead of a salad, we steamed some "Simply Spinach," using Spanish spinach from the market that has been pretty good.

Wabbit #2.
Now we have the rabbit loin to transform into something yummy.  We turned the page, and Simon says "Stewed Rabbit with Balsamic Vinegar and Parsnip Purée."   This requires taking the rabbit pieces:

Then they are sprinkled with caster sugar (known as superfine sugar in the US - we have been down this road before when making the River Cafe's Nemesis Chocolate Cake).

The rabbit is then sauteed in clarified butter until a rich brown.   Next add the vinegar and "meat glaze" (this one escaped us, we used stock concentrate), and simmer for 45-60 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the parsnip puree.  Take some nice English parsnips like these,

peel them, cut them, up, cook in milk (that's the secret!), and then puree with some butter, mustard, and milk.  Ideally, they would be passed through a chinoise for a final stage, but we left ours at home.  Along with these, we cooked some nice Kenyan broad beans from Waitrose, and had another rabbity repast.