strawberry salad, rabbit and a blueberry cheesecake to die for
09 Sep 2009 1 Comment
in food and drink Tags: blueberry cheesecake, jamie oliver, rabbit, recipe, strawberry salad
When it comes to food, I’m willing to try most things at least once. However, when Chris told me a while ago that rabbit was in season, I was rather apprehensive. See, where I’m from bunnies are pets. In meat-loving South Africa rabbit isn’t something that people just pop on the braai (bbq). So when we were contemplating menu choices for a getogether with friends and Chris suggested rabbit, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea. Cunningly, I thought I’d float the idea with our guests in the hope one of them would be opposed to it… only for John to reply: “It’s my favourite!” So rabbit it was.
Chris did the shopping on the Saturday morning, popping to the market for the ingredients while I baked the cheesecake for dessert. Unfortunately our guests called up while he was away to share the news that they were both down with flu. Chris and I decided to carry on cooking and just enjoy the food on our own. But unbeknownst to Chris at the time, the lovely butcher who quartered the little critter for us, sold him a frozen rabbit. Undeterred, we defrosted it while prepping the veg for our recipe from Valentina Harris and getting going on the starter.
The starter is a dinner party staple in the Webber household, especially in summer when we can get our hands on the plumpest, juiciest and sweetest British strawberries. The recipe for strawberry salad with speck and halloumi appears in Jamie Oliver’s cookbook Jamie at Home, but I also found this link to it online. Our version doesn’t look quite as nice as the one in the book, but I promise you it’s a taste sensation. It’s sweet, sour, salty and fresh, making your taste buds zing and beg for more.
Next up, the chopped veggies and the pieces of rabbit (which I kept calling chicken … must have been some sub-conscious thing) were arranged to go into the oven. I must admit that the tiny ribcage and Chris’s cruel jokes very nearly put me off my dinner, but I persisted… in the name of culinary research of course.
The end result was pleasing enough. The rabbit really takes on the taste of whatever you cook it with, which in our case meant a lot of white wine. The meat itself was tender and juicy, and tasted a bit like ‘wild’ chicken. It also took a bit of work to get all the meat off the bone, because the bones are so tiny (bless the bunny). I half expected to love the taste, but hoped that if I didn’t that I would actually dislike it. I am disappointed that I feel mainly indifferent about it. However, I’m willing to give it another shot, with a different recipe this time, just to make up my mind. I don’t see the point in obsessing about cute bunnies if the result is only a mediocre culinary experience.
We ended the evening with a bang. Having made a cheesecake thinking we were having guests for dinner, I realised soon enough that there was going to be a lot of cheesecake eating in our house over the next few days. I did not complain. We went for Rachel Allen’s ridiculously delicious blueberry baked cheesecake as demonstrated here. The result, if I may say so myself, was phenomenal. Light, creamy, sweet and delicious, with juicy, fresh blueberries exploding with each bite. It was heaven on earth. I served the generous slices with a few fresh blueberries, a dusting of icing sugar and some lavender from our balcony “garden”. Our friends SO missed out.
