Vermont

We met family and friends in Vermont for the weekend, and I finally got some much-needed rest. Friday we had beautiful steaks that I grilled outside along with copious zucchini from our garden, plus kale sautéed with lardo and lemon. I marinated the steaks in wine, soy sauce, and rice vinegar for an hour before grilling, and we drank (after some rosé) a 1997 Beringer reserve cab that was just as good as steak wine gets. Perfect.

The next night I took a whole rabbit we also brought up and broke it down into chunks (with the bones still on, and organs reserved for extra flavor.) It made a lovely stew with our lardo, turnips, onion, carrot and herbs, plus a bottle of beer, some of John’s leftover beef broth, dried currants, and cumin and cinnamon for a little Moroccan edge. The combination of lardo and light beef broth enhanced the rabbit flavor without overpowering it at all, and the sweet currants and Mahgreb spices gave it a gently exotic perfume. To emphasize this theme, I sautéed some of our rainbow carrots in a little butter, then added more cumin, cinnamon, and cayenne, plus lemon juice and a little maple syrup. We made more kale, and brown rice. John took the picture with his iPhone, which might have something to do with why it’s so blurry. We drank more rosé and then a 2005 Faiveley Bourgogne.

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4 Comments

  1. cook eat FRET
    August 19, 2008

    justanotherdayinthelifeofpeter…

    the rabbit sounds amazing. i’ve never made rabbit but i want to and i will.

    glad you got to kick back…

  2. Heather
    August 19, 2008

    Hey, do your carrots hold their color when cooked? My Royal Burgundy beans’ purple color is so fugitive, they just turn boring ol’ green when hit with acid or heat. Why grow beautiful heirloom vegetables if they don’t stay purple?

    My Purple Haze carrots didn’t come up, so I have to live vicariously through you.

    Nice touch, serving carrots with rabbit.

  3. Brittany
    August 19, 2008

    Oh god rabbit stew-I can’t wait until fall! I love rabbit, especially when lardo is involved

  4. peter
    August 19, 2008

    Claudia: It doesn’t actually taste like chicken. It’s easy.

    Heather: The pigments in the carrots are much more durable than those in the darn purple beans. They really retain their separate identities,even when cooked together- as opposed to beets, where the dark ones dye everything else and it all comes out the same.

    Brittany: It’s a little cooler up there, and the edges of some maples are turning, so it felt just right.

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