CREAMY RABBIT STEW WITH WHITE WINE

This creamy rabbit stew with white wine and tomatoes is great for festive dinners. You can serve it with rice, bread of your choice of homemade pasta.

Hope you are all enjoying your preparations for Easter. I am extremely busy, as I am preparing many traditional Czech meals and sweets, so time really goes by fast. This year I am preparing one of our family traditional meal and that is creamy rabbit stew with white wine & tomato sauce. I will be serving this traditional meal with nontraditional bread and that is naan bread.

How to prepare rabbit stew

To get the best  taste of rabbit is to cook it a day before you plan to serving it. The meat will get the time to absorb all the beautiful flavours from rosemary, garlic and tomatoes and the meat will be much more tender.

Rabbit’s meet is actually very delicate meat, so you won’t be cooking it for a longer time, then a chicken.  Usually it takes in between 60 – 90 minutes. Of course, it all depends on the size of the rabbit.

Rabbits are easy to get in European stores all year around. Especially during the Easter time, many cultures cook rabbit for Easter. So you should not have a problem to finding rabbit even in your local store. My rabbit was around 4 – 5 pounds, which is plenty enough for 6 adults.

What to serve with rabbit stew

Rice would be the best choice having with rabbit stew, because it has lots of sauce. Rice will absorb all the moisture from the sauce.

Bread is another option to be served with the creamy stew. Bread also absorbs well the moisture. I have served Indian bread called Naan, which I found in my local grocery store.

Bread dumplings would go as well with stew. If you have an extra time to spare, you can prepare Czech dumplings, here is the recipe.

Ingredients needed

• rabbit
• flour
• seasoning (salt & pepper)
• crushed tomatoes in can or fresh
• garlic
• fresh rosemary
• heavy cream and dry white wine

You can use 10% up to 35%, depending on how rich you want the sauce to be. I prefer using 35% cream, because I like to have this dish to be rich and creamy. No wonder I call it creamy rabbit stew. Few springs of rosemary will add excellent flavour to the whole dish.

What special equipment you need

Would be preferable, if you have a large cast iron pot or any large heavy saucepan you can use to prepare this rabbit stew recipe. Rabbit might look and sound as a small and tiny, but trust me, once you will portion all the parts, it will take up space in the large saucepan.

Wine for rabbit stew

This rabbit stew recipe calls for dry white wine. If you do not like the taste of alcohol in stews, you can simply omit using it or substitute the wine for apple or grape juice. But you don’t have to worry about getting your guests drunk. Because once the wine is added to the stew, the alcohol will evaporate while simmering the stew.

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CREAMY RABBIT STEW WITH WHITE WINE & TOMATO SAUCE

Julia

This creamy stew with white wine and tomatoes is great for festive dinners. You can serve it with bread or rice.

5 from 5 votes

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Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr 10 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 40 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine Czech

Servings 6 servings

Calories 412 kcal

Equipment

• Regular large sauce pot with lid

Ingredients

  

• 1 rabbit 3-5 pounds
• 2 tbsp of flour
• salt
• pepper
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp butter
• 4 cloves of garlic sliced
• 4 cups crushed tomatoes
• 4 springs fresh rosemary
• 2 cups dry white wine or apple/raisin juice
• 1 cup 35 % cream

Sides

• 1 pkg store bought naan or pita

Instructions

 

• Wash the rabbit and cut the meat in serving pieces. Cut off first the front and back legs, cut through the spine to separate it and ten cut in another half to get four pieces from the back. In total you will have 8 pieces.
• In a shallow plate add flour and season it with salt and freshly ground pepper. Coat each rabbit piece with this flour mixture.
• In a large cast iron pot, reheat olive oil on medium- high heat and brown the meat on all sides until golden brown.
• When the rabbit is browned well from all sides, add 2 tbsp of butter and garlic slices, crushed tomatoes, herbs. Cover and cook gently for 1 hour or until the rabbit meat will fall off the bone.
• Remove the lid and check for doneness. If the meat is already falling off the bone, Add 1 cup of cream and stir, then add wine and let simmer for another 10 minutes.
• Optional: Turn off the heat, fish out the rabbit pieces and let the cool on a baking sheet. Pull all the meat off the bones and return the meat to the stew. This makes the stew much more enjoyable, but if you don’t mind fighting with the bones, leave the rabbit pieces with the bones.
• The meat will be soft and juicy with rich creamy sauce. You can accompany this rabbit stew with pitta bread, over rice or good homemade pasta.

Notes

• Serve this creamy rabbit stew with bread of your liking or opt for rice or homemade pasta.
•  If you are not a fan of alcohol in a dish, you can opt the white wine for apple juice or grape juice. It will also give sweeter taste to the stew.
• For a lighter version of this creamy rabbit stew, use only 15% cooking cream or coconut milk.

Keyword festive, rabbit, stew