Recipe: Shane Delia’s Authentic Maltese Rabbit Stew

Shane Delia understands if you’re squeamish about cooking rabbits, but in Malta the leporidae is king of cuisine. Delia describes first joining his grandfather and father to kill and prepare the rabbit he’d been given to raise as both “beautiful” and “something out of Breaking Bad ”. If you want to follow his recipe for Broadsheet , it’s easier to just buy a farmed rabbit. Even so, Delia’s a big advocate of pausing to be grateful for where your food came from.

As a high-profile chef, Delia has built an empire based on the Maltese notion of fostering community through food and says he owes it all to those formative years. “Nunnu’s backyard was a wonderland,” he says. “There was an orchard to explore, and he’d be in his shed, painting statues for the church. My grandmother would be inside baking biscuits. It was a really wholesome, beautiful environment to grow up in.”

Beyond being the author of three cookery books and host of SBS’s Shane Delia’s Spice Journey and also the Recipe for Life series, he’s the owner of Maha in Melbourne’s CBD, which specialises in Middle Eastern flavours, and Biggie Smalls – an uptown kebab truck with a downtown, hip-hop vibe. And on February 24, he'll open Maha Bar in Collingwood.

“Maha Bar is based on the local bars in every Maltese village, which try to outdo each other on a Sunday by offering free snack food to people drinking after church,” he says. “So every Friday, Saturday and Sunday between three and five we’re going to be offering free meze, serving things from my childhood – like rabbit stew and octopus stew, and hobz biz-zejt – which is beautiful tomato paste, olive oil, bread and some pickled things.”

When visiting Malta itself, Delia recommends you hunt down the restaurants that cook home-style food, not the touristy options on the main strips. “There’s really only a handful of classic, rustic Maltese dishes, but one of my favourites is ravjul Malti ,” he says. “It’s basically ravioli made of really thick semolina pasta, filled with fresh Maltese cheese and cooked in a simple tomato sauce with onions, cumin, garlic and olive oil.”

You can’t go past Maltese sweets, either, like imqaret – a fried pastry with dates and treacle – and qaghaq ta’ l-ghasel , which is a honey and treacle ring. “And Maltese nougat is really nice,” says Delia. “It’s brittle, with almost-burnt sugar and sesame.”

The rabbit stew is from a Delia family recipe, with a few twists to adapt it for summertime consumption. “I added the gremolata and lemon for texture and freshness, because like most peasant dishes it’s slow-cooked for hours on end and the flavours become quite subtle.”

A note of caution: there are a lot of fine bones around a rabbit’s rib cage. “I’m in the luxurious condition of having a restaurant where I just use the rear leg and save the rest of the rabbit for other dishes,” he says. “If you can’t do that, just be careful when you’re serving it. Also watch out for the freshness of the spice. If it’s not fresh you might need three times the amount of cumin to get the same flavour. I’d suggest buying your spices in smaller quantities and then roasting and grinding them yourself.”

Rabbit stew with sultana gremolata
Serves 6
Preparation time: 2 hours marinating time and 30 minutes preparation time
Cooking time: 2 hours

Ingredients:

Rabbit
1 whole farmed white rabbit, about 800g
¼ cup olive oil
2 cinnamon sticks
¼ tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
2 brown onions, diced
3 tbsp light brown sugar
1 tsp salt flakes
1 tsp malt vinegar
3 tbsp tomato paste
3 cups dry red wine
8 cloves garlic
6 bay leaves
200 grams peas
200 grams flour (for dusting rabbit)

Sultana gremolata
1 baguette
2 tbsp ghee, melted
½ cup pine nuts, toasted
100g sultanas
Small handful flat-leaf parsley leaves to garnish
Zest of 2 lemons

Method:

Break rabbit into large chunks or ask your butcher to do this for you (keep the kidneys and liver whole). Place rabbit pieces in a large bowl with the red wine, garlic and
bay leaves. Allow to marinate overnight or for a minimum of two hours. Remove rabbit from the wine and pat dry. Keep all the liquid the rabbit was in.

Season the rabbit with salt and freshly ground pepper. Place flour in a bowl and dust each piece of the rabbit including the kidneys and liver.

Heat two tablespoons of the olive oil in a flameproof casserole dish over high heat. Add rabbit pieces and cook a few minutes on each side until evenly browned. Remove and set aside. Add spices, coriander, onion, sugar, salt and malt vinegar and cook for a few minutes until onion softens. Stir through tomato paste and allow to cook out, return rabbit (not the kidneys or liver) to the dish, add the wine and cook for about 15 minutes or until the sauce has thickened.

Add enough water to cover the rabbit, place lid on top and simmer for about 1½ hours or until the meat comes away from the bone. Remove rabbit from the dish, gently pull the meat away from the bones and discard the bones. Once the meat has been picked, place back into the sauce, add the peas, kidneys and liver, allow to cook for another five minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180 degrees.

To make the gremolata, put the baguette in a food processor and blend into a coarse crumb. Transfer the crumb onto a baking tray and pour the ghee over, coating evenly. Cook for eight minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and, while still hot, mix through pine nuts, sultanas, parsley and lemon zest.

Divide the rabbit between six serving bowls and top with the sauce. Sprinkle sultana gremolata and remaining oil over the meat and serve.

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