lapin au saupiquet

Lapin au saupiquet: rabbit marinated in vinegar and stewed in wine, finished with prunes cooked in stock, butter and brandy. The sauce/gravy is probably one of the best I have made... ever. So delicious. We started with shaved fennel salad and ate the rabbit with parsley potatoes. Finished with a plum-frangipane tart. This is from vol. II of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1970).

pappardelle with rabbit

This is a recipe from Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie (London: Michael Joseph, 2006); I tend to be very skeptical of all celebrity chefs, but I've received two of his books as gifts and everything he does is great. Leeks baked with bacon? Amazing. Pasta with stewed rabbit? Also amazing.

I used ½ AP flour, ½ semolina, rolled the dough out slightly thicker than I usually do and cut it by hand for pappardelle.


A full rabbit, jointed is marinated overnight in olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, lemon zest, thyme, and rosemary. It gets seared and is them simmered in white wine, in the over, with more garlic, rosemary and thyme. Shredded, with the cooking liquid strained, it is finished with green olives (I forget the name of the ones I bought, but they were great), marjoram, thyme and parmesan. As with many delicious things, I forgot to take a picture before digging in. Served with Julia Child's recipe for haricots verts: boiled, then dry-sautéed until the moisture is gone and topped with butter and parsley. My new favorite way to eat haricots verts.

sam gye tang

A kit for Sam Gye Tang, Korean chicken soup with ginseng, comes in a little package like this. It contains rice, three dates, two ginseng roots and four or five chestnuts. You start by soaking the rice for at least three hours.

Then take a poussin (or game hen). I blanched it to reduce scum in the final soup. Stuff with rice and other ingredients. Space was limited, so a couple of dates and chestnuts and one of the ginseng roots stayed out, loose in the pot. Put the poussin in a pot, cover with water. Add some cloves of garlic (whole). Cook until done. This was just under two hours. I've seen a range of suggested times from forty-five minutes to three-and-a-half hours

Finish the soup by adding salt to taste at the very end. Serve with green onions and pepper. (And other side dishes such as kimchi, if you have them).

The poussin held together but comes apart easily with chopsticks. Very delicious. The ginseng is a little bitter, but the rice and dates balance it out perfectly. I know this dish is designed for the summer, but it feels perfect for frigid February days and an urge to fight the flu.

oxtail with brussels sprouts and turnip

Bought some oxtail yesterday. I had been thinking about it since seeing an "Oxtail Galette" on a menu. Never having had oxtail, I was excited about the prospect. Came across oxtail and did what seemed right: I cooked the hell out of it.


It's very fatty — as you can see from the fat I left on the meat and the fat in the background that the dog ate (although I wish I had, it was so good). I had two pounds of oxtail (one large, fatty one, two smaller). I seasoned and then fried them in olive oil and drained the oil and removed the meat. I added a leek and most of a head of garlic and sweated that. I added the meat, a huge sprig of thyme, a bay leaf, some beef stock (made with beef ribs, leek greens, allspice and pepper) and some mediocre Beaujolais. I covered it with parchment and a lid.

Two hours later I added brussels sprouts (quartered, in thirds or halved, depending on size), a carrot and a turnip.


And an hour after that, it was amazing. I seasoned it. I took out a section of oxtail, removed the meat from the bone and chopped it. I ladled vegetables and broth on the side. Growing up, I was the kid who hated "gristle" on meat. This has lots of fat and collagen and is so incredibly good. The fat just melts in your mouth. This would be amazing in a crock pot too.

kimchi jjigae

I recently made kimchi that was about equal parts burdock (gobō), carrot and napa cabbage. I also included dried shrimp for the first time. Like adding anchovies, it adds a je ne sais quoi to the kimchi: you don't notice the shrimp, but it improves the flavor.

I asked a friend how to make kimchi jjigae, a soup made with kimchi.

I sautéed some cubes of pork belly in sesame oil (my friend suggested bacon or spam, and I had belly in the freeezer with is just uncured, unsalted bacon) and took them out. I then added a good deal of kimchi and sautéed that. I added water, cooked for a bit and added the pork and some cubed tofu. My friend suggested dashida, which I didn't have, so I threw in a sqaure of kombu (kelp) and two anchovies. I also didn't have hot pepper paste so I squirted in a nice dose of sriracha. I let that cook on lowish until my brown rice (started while the pork was getting its first cooking) was done.

And it is delicious. The pork belly soaked up so much flavor. The broth is deep red, like a tomato sauce. And not having scallions, I topped it with pickled ramps.

goat, no photo.

Tonight I brought goat stew to work, the last of a 5lb package of goat (2lb ground, 3lb stew) from the lady who sells me goat cheeses at the market. I think that the alcohol may not have all evaporated as I felt a bit overwhelmed after lunch. It made me want to sit down (which I actually did, for a moment, it was so slow). The stew started yesterday around 10 am with a bottle of chianti, 2lbs of goat, herbes de provence and some onion. Lots of pepper came latter on, as well as a whole wheat bread, à la Boston brown, -- you know, in a coffee can, but this was in some stoneware bread crock I received for Christmas that stuck on the bottom -- and roasted parsnips (which I found out have tons of potassium. And roasted, almost a bananna-like texture, no? [cf. potassium in bananas]).