Rabbit with Olives Cooking Recipe – Coniglio Alla Sanremese Recipe
Traditional Ligurian cuisine features mostly white meat, such as rabbit and poultry, but also, to a lesser extent, veal, lamb, kid, and pork.
Serves 8
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Marinating time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 30 minutes approximately
Ingredients
- 1 jointed and boned rabbit with its liver, and preferably other offal
- 1 cup (250 ml) wine vinegar
- 2 onions
- 2 tablespoons walnut kernels
- 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
- 8 cloves garlic
- 1 sprig of thyme
- 1-2 bay leaves
- 1 sprig of rosemary
- 4 cups (1 liter) red wine
- 20 riviera (or Provencal) olives
- Salt
Cooking Method
- Ask your butcher to joint and bone the rabbit when you buy it, retaining the head and offal.
- Marinate the rabbit pieces in 1 cup (250 ml) of vinegar mixed with 3 cups (750 ml) water for 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, simmer the rabbit’s head and offal in 1 ⅔ cups (400 ml) of salted water for 15 minutes minimum, over medium heat.
- Peel the onions and chop. Finely chop the walnuts.
- Pat the marinated rabbit pieces dry and heat in a pan, without fat, so that water still contained in the meat evaporates.
- Transfer the pieces of rabbit to a large stockpot with the olive oil and brown them.
- Add the chopped onions, unpeeled garlic, walnuts, and herbs; season with salt.
- When the onions are well colored, deglaze with the wine, then let everything simmer for approximately 1 hour.
- Once the offal is cooked, remove it from its stock, and chop it up.
- Remove the head and discard.
- Add the chopped offal back to the stock and use this stock to moisten the rabbit while it is cooking.
- Add the olives 5 minutes before the end of the cooking time.
Suggested food/wine match
- Maccario Dringenberg, Rossese di Dolceacqua Posad superiore—Rosse DOC
Chef’s note
Serve a vegetable puree with the rabbit, or roasted potatoes. You can use the cooking juice, without the olives, for flavoring pasta.
