Rabbit Stew with Liver and Herb Dumplings.

Ingredients:

Serves 4

1 Rabbit, cut into 12 pieces (legs halved and mid section boned and quartered), liver finely chopped for dumplings.

75g Diced smoked pancetta

A little plain flour for coating the rabbit

Half an onion finely diced

1 Carrot, finely diced

2 Sticks of celery, finely diced

2 Cloves of garlic, sliced

4 Sprigs of thyme

2 Bay leaves

200ml White wine

3 tblsp Hendersons relish ( use Worcester sauce as an alternative )

400ml Chicken stock

Salt and pepper to season

20 Small pickling onions

20 Chantenay carrots

For the dumplings:

200g Self raising flour

100g Suet

200ml Cold water

Chopped liver from the rabbit

1 tsp Salt

0.5 tsp White pepper

2 tblsp Chopped parsley

1 tblsp Chopped thyme

0.5 tblsp Chopped rosemary

Method:

For the dumplings:

• Add the self raising flour, suet, cooked liver, herbs, salt and pepper to a mixing bowl.
• Add the cold water and mix until a soft dough is formed. Do not over mix the dough as this will make your dumplings heavy.

For the rabbit stew:

• Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees C ( 325 degrees F) gas mark 3
• Heat an oven-proof saucepan and add a little olive oil, fry the livers until browned (this should only take 1 minute) and remove from the pan, set aside to use in the dumplings.
• Bring the pan back up to heat and add a little more oil, fry the pickling onions and Chantenay carrots until browned and just beginning to soften. Remove from the pan and set aside.
• Dip the rabbit pieces in plain flour to coat.
• Heat the pan, add a few table spoons of olive oil and fry the rabbit pieces in batches to brown then remove from the pan.
• Add the chopped onion, pancetta, carrot, celery, garlic and thyme and fry for a couple of minutes until browned.
• Add the white wine and relish to the pan and bring to the boil for 1 minute
• Add the hot chicken stock, salt and pepper and finally the browned rabbit pieces and bay leaves.
• Put the lid on the pan and put in the oven for 1 hour.
• After one hour take the pan from the oven and carefully remove the rabbit pieces.
• Strain the liquid in the pan through a sieve and put the liquid back in the pan, discard the vegetables and pancetta.
• Add the Chantenay carrots and pickling onions to the pan and put the rabbit pieces back in, put the lid back on and return to the oven for 15 minutes
• After 15 minutes take the pan out and spoon table spoons of the dumpling mix onto the top of the stew, leaving a little space between each one, put the lid back on and return to the oven for another 15 minutes.
• After 15 minutes remove the lid and cook for a final 10-15 minutes.