A tame rabbit will certainly feed four.  A wild rabbit will feed between two or three, depending on the size.

I wanted to mention the last article I posted over at Eat Me Daily,  Five Chefs Who Embrace The Nasty Bits.  I’m particularly proud of it, and I’m thankful that so many fantastic chefs here in America are working to change the mindsets and palates of the people walking in their front doors.

Also, my inbox just received an e-mail confirming my registration for the 1st Annual Foodbuzz Blogger Festival which is taking place November 6-8th, in San Francisco, CA!  If you too plan to be at the festival, keep an eye out for a tall fellow wearing an “I love offal” t-shirt.

I’ll be in the Silicon Valley area for the whole week beforehand, and I’m determined to make my way to Sacramento to meet up with one Hank Shaw.  Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll be able to visit Incanto again, I’ve been dreaming about the meal I had there last time.  Anywho, let’s get on to the post, shall we?

Before I started making the recipe, I need to dry out a few stems of fennel.  Mr. Henderson mentions in the ingredient list that good food shops should carry dried fennel.  Here in the states, we’re seriously lacking in good shops as none of the supermarkets or smaller shops had it in stock.  That meant I needed to make the dried fennel myself.

I removed the stems from the bulbs and arranged them carefully on a rack that I placed in my oven.  I set the convection setting to the lowest possible temperature and left the stems in there for 2 straight hours.

While it’s no dehydrator the convection oven did a fine job drying out the fennel’s stems and feathery leaves.  With my one missing ingredient finished, the actually cooking could commence.

I realize that it’s tough to tell in this picture, but the rabbit that I had purchased at the farmer’s market ended up being MASSIVE.  Weighing in at about ten pounds, this bunny could easily feed eight to ten people.  If you ever need to serve rabbit to a small army, Sebastian and Esther Bonneau of Countryside Farm at the downtown Austin Farmer’s Market are the people to visit, and I can vouch for the quality of their produce.

A quick slathering of olive and seasoning with salt and pepper, the rabbit was ready to be dressed.  Mr. Henderson instructions say to surround it with the fennel so that things start to look like a scene from The Wicker Man.  I placed the dried fennel all around the body, wrapping it around the front and rear legs and even including some in the cavity.

Next, I used slices of bacon to secure the fennel to the body.  The bacon–in addition to being tasty–also acted as a shield to the rabbit, keeping it safe from overcooking and drying out.  Rabbit is a very lean meat, so extra fat to keep it moist is always welcome.  In the roasting pan I added a few cups of chicken stock and a half bottle of white wine, along with some whole heads of garlic with the skin still in place.  The rabbit was placed in a medium hot oven for a little over an hour and a half.  In retrospect I probably could have left it in there a little longer, but my wife and I were hungry and unwilling to put up with the wonderful smell any more.

At first glance you can see how crispy the bacon got after it’s time in the oven.  We slowly, carefully began removing it from the rabbit, trying to not burn ourselves in the process.  While the bacon was still edible, the fennel needed to be removed.  Many of the fennel fronds had broken apart which made for a frustrating game of Operation.

The completed recipe.  I removed the front two legs for us to eat that evening, and served them with some of the bacon, a few softened cloves of garlic and a splash of the cooking liquid.  The thing we both first noticed was that the fennel had imparted a strange floral note to the bacon.  While I’ll be the first to admit that bad bacon is usually better than most things, this bacon proved to be an exception to the rule.  Edible for sure, just not tasty.  The legs on the other hand were perfectly cooked with a very nice anise property thanks to the dried fennel in addition to the usual gamy-chicken flavor rabbit is known for.  Some of the other parts of the rabbit hadn’t cooked enough and were rather tough.  I’m chalking that up to the fact this bunny was larger than your average NFL linebacker.

This was an interesting recipe, and while I might be persuaded to make it again if asked, I just don’t foresee myself drying fennel again any time soon.

One down, sixty five to go.