Sunday, October 04, 2009

Hassenpfeffer

God bless you or gesundheit.....Yeah, saying hassenpfeffer sounds like you've got some wicked allergies.

When I was considering new menu items, I knew I wanted to do some type of preparation with rabbit. I wasn't sure if I was going to present the whole animal or just the legs. After a few different ideas, I landed on doing some type of twist on hassenpfeffer. Honestly, I just like to say hassenpfeffer. Traditionally, hassenpfeffer is a stew of marinated rabbit. So, what to do, what to do.

First, I decided to bag the rabbit legs with apple cider. Then there was a trip to the hot tub at 69.9 degrees for 12 hours.


Once the rabbit is out of the tub, it's chilled and held for service. So, what goes with apple cider braised rabbit leg? Well, how about brown butter egg noodles? So, we make our own egg yolk heavy pasta dough and, once it's cooked toss it with brown butter. The final touch is a bit of root vegetables. The rabbit legs are napped with a sauce made from apple cider, white wine, heavy cream, garlic and shallots.



So, how do you take a rustic German rabbit stew and make it completely over the top? How about grating some black truffle over it? OK, talked me into it.



I love this dish. It shows off a little technique on our part, allows us to have brown butter egg noodles(aren't these one of life's amazing pleasures? If you've never had them, do yourself a favor and get you some) on the menu and gives us the opportunity to grate some truffles! Hope you'll check into the restaurant and try it out!

4 comments:

Karen said...

Thank you Bugs Bunny for teaching little American children about Hassenpfeffer.. :-)

Marj Bernstein said...

wish I could have that soon.

Anonymous said...

So you hold the rabbit en sous vide in the TDZ for 12 hours? DUDE!
How is is this good from a sanitation point?

Chef Andrew Little said...

Anon.

The TDZ or temperature danger zone that you allude to is from 40 F to 140 F. We cook the rabbit legs at 69.9 C or 157.82 F, so DUDE! it's just fine from a sanitation point.