Rabbit with Mushrooms and Mustard Sauce

First, catch your rabbit; not as easy as we thought. Our rabbit hunting adventures took us all around town and eventually to the curiously named "Taupiri Deli and Ice Cream Shop" in Taupiri. This fantastic little shop has a huge range of wild foods and about 30 different flavours of ice cream. We picked up fresh rabbit, venison shin and half a smoked eel...yum.
This recipe comes from the April-May 2009 edition of "Dish" magazine. I have altered it slightly because the "Dish" recipe produced a dish that was too salty. We used fresh rabbit shoulders rather than a whole rabbit.
This recipe was the perfect thing to try out our shiny new toy from The Scullery, check out this bad boy.



The recipe will serve 4-5. At the end of cooking you should have something that looks a bit like this.



Rabbit with Mushrooms and Mustard Sauce

1 fresh, farmed rabbit (we used a pack of fresh rabbit shoulders, there were about 16 pieces)
Enough streaky bacon to wrap your rabbit pieces
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of butter
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon of wholegrain mustard
1 tablespoon of finely chopped rosemary
2 bay leaves
450g of small button mushrooms
1/2 a cup of Marsala
1 cup of chicken stock (use campbells reduced salt liquid stock, the powdered stock will be too salty)
Freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup of cream
2 tablespoons of flat leafed parsley, chopped
Salt

If you are using a whole rabbit break it down in to 6-8 pieces and wrap each piece with the bacon. Secure the bacon with kitchen string. You should have something resembling the picture below although if you are using a whole rabbit you will have bigger and fewer pieces.



Heat the olive oil and butter in a large pan and brown the rabbit on all sides. Remove to a plate.
Add the garlic, mustard, rosemary, bay leaves and mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms start to soften, add a little stock if the pan becomes to dry.
Increase the heat and add the Marsala and stock, add freshly ground black pepper and allow to bubble up. Add the rabbit and any resting juices back to the pan.
Cover and reduce the heat to medium low. Braise for about 25-30 minutes or until the rabbit is tender.
Remove the rabbit to a plate and cover to keep warm. Stir in the cream and boil until the sauce is reduced and syrupy. Stir in the flat leafed parsley, taste and season if required. Add the rabbit back to the pan and spoon over the sauce.



We served the rabbit with scalloped potatoes and green beans. Remove the string before serving.