Ingredients
(serves four)
2 whole saddles of farmed rabbit
50g Agen prunes, soaked in tea for 12 hours
100g butter
50g sugar
2 Bramley apples, peeled, cored and quartered
50ml white wine
2 whole parsnips, peeled and sliced
For the sauce
Salt
250g small mirepoix
100ml white wine
1 clove garlic
20 white peppercorns
2 ripe tomatoes, chopped
100ml veal stock
250ml chicken stock
1 sprig tarragon
A little butter
Garnishes
Dried apple slices and deep-fried parsnip
Method
Remove the rabbit loins from the bone, keeping the belly attached to the loin.
Dry the prunes on kitchen paper then finely chop to a paste.
Season each of the saddles then spread the prunes over the top of each loin and fold over the belly to make a roulade. Tie each one with four pieces of butcher's twine.
Melt half the butter in a pan with the sugar, and add the apples and the white wine. Cover and cook until the apples are soft and the liquid has evaporated. Purée and set aside.
Cook the parsnip in an emulsion of water, the remaining butter and salt, then drain and purée.
Chop the rabbit bones into small pieces, season and sauté, using excess fat from the saddle, until golden brown. Remove the bones from the pan and add the mirepoix. Sauté until golden brown and deglaze with the wine. Return the bones to the pan with the garlic, peppercorns and tomato and cover with both stocks. Cook for 20 minutes, then remove from the heat and add the tarragon.
Allow to infuse for 30 minutes, then pass. Finish with butter and season.
Season and sauté the saddles, then roast in the oven for five minutes. Allow to rest, then remove the twine.
Pour apple purée on to the plate and arrange slices of the rabbit on top. Pour rabbit jus around the outside of the plate and garnish with quenelles of parsnip purée and slices of dried apple.
Garnish the rabbit slices with julienne of deep-fried parsnip.
Martin Wishart
Photo © Alan Donaldson