So its be a while...I had thought to post more food related stuff a while back but then for whatever reason I did not. I attribute this to the syndrome where you have several ideas for something and then they all try to jam through a door together and ultimately none get out...that is my explanation.
Anyways, this entry is about using the fiddly bits, particularly rabbit. I had purchased a rabbit the other day for dinner and of course it came with the organs (heart, liver, kidney, lungs, tongue). When I made rabbit once before I grilled these up and fed them to a loving cat. This time there was no cat available and I felt that I should not waste the organs. So as most of the scion of invention are, this recipe too is born of necessity. So next time you buy/hunt a rabbit(s) and wonder what you can do with the organs give this a shot, I hope you like it as much as I did. If you don't, this other blog gives a bunch of alternatives, they all seem tasty.
I had expected this organ meal to be well, very organ-y. It turned out to be not that offal tasting at all. It goes as such,
Ingredients
melange of rabbbit organs (heart, kidney, tongue, liver, kidney...and if you really like brain).
sour cream and onion Pringles crushed into breadcrumb crumbs
olive oil
spices of choice (I used curry powder and black pepper)
lemon (for squeezing on after cooking)
Preparation
1.) remove the organs from the rabbit and wash quickly under cold water. After washing cut the organs into smaller pieces and place all the organs together in a pile (similar now to Italian coratella). You can now proceed to chop this organ pile into what can only really be called a fine meat paste (i.e. diced and chop until the meat is of a paste consistency). You see as well that I listed brain above. I personally am not a huge brain fan. It is not the worst, but it is not the best and frankly brain as a food always gives my just enough pause to avoid eating it regularly. I suppose the irrational ghosts of kuru, BSE and CJD linger in my mind. If you enjoy brain, it would surely meld well into this dish.
2.) take the desired amount of Pringle chips and crush them into breadcrumb sized portions. For this I ballpark estimate that you will need ~10 chips. Into the crushed Pringles pour ~2 table spoons of olive oil (so as to coagulate the crumbs). Mix this all together, coasting the crumbs with oil.
SIDENOTE!!! this Pringle idea works nicely but was also originally crafted out of necessity. I wanted to bread this offal but it was late and the store was closed so I could not get eggs or proper breadcrumbs-you can definitely opt to do this instead, I just simply have yet to.
3.) now that you have a mass of oiled crumbs you can cover a pan lightly with a little more oil or butter. Make a little thin bed of crumbs on the frying pan the size you would like your final product to be. This is done because the meat mass lacks cohesion so it is hard to "roll" the meat in the crumbs. You could always take steps to make the meat more cohesive.
4.) once the bed of crumbs is in the pan place the meat paste on top. Cover the top of the meat with more crumbs (you can also work the often left over crumbs from the bottom up onto the sides of the meat). Once the meat is all covered as you like FRY IT! -I go with low and slow. Do it however you see fit.
When the meat is cooked you can serve it with a slice of lemon for drizzling over top. This is a very tasty approach.
You will see in the ingredients section the call for "spices." You can go three ways with this I figure: 1.) no spices at all, 2.) include the spices in the meat before cooking-this worked nicely with curry powder but less so with pepper, 3.) put the spices on after with or without the lemon option-this worked best with black pepper, I did not try straight curry powder...in case anyone wondered.
As you can imagine the organs of a rabbit do not provide a whole lot of meat, so expect small servings. These can be made into small hors d'houvers for a bunch of people or eaten as a meal for a single person (or I guess if you had a lot of rabbit organs for some reason, a full meal item for many people...).
I hope you enjoy this rabbit offal recipe as much as I did,
Huck
