Malta

STAPLE FOOD

• Potato
• Wheat
• Vegetables

Stewed Rabbit or Fenkata

2 whole rabbits, cut into large-ish portions (as stated above).
Some red wine vinegar
2 heads of garlic, chopped roughly (it will pretty much dissolve after stewing)
2 large onions, cut in half then sliced lengthways
4 or 5 bayleaves
1 teaspoon "hwawar tal fenek/rabbit seasoning"
3 heaped tablespoons Kunserva (tomato paste is an exceptable substitute)
2 bottles dry dark red wine (nero d'avola or a Shiraz is ideal)
Mediterranean seasalt, heaps of it
Good olive oil
A heap of nice waxy potatoes
pepper, a few sprigs of rosemary.
750g-1kg spaghetti (i like the thicker spaghettoni for this recipe).
2 tins of marrowfat peas
Grated cheese to serve- I used parmiggiano but kefalotiri or pecorino would do also 
One large hobza Maltija (or a large fresh white sourdough loaf if not in Malta) to serve

IN THE MORNING:

Wash the rabbit with vinegar. If you do this you won't need to marinade it. Nanna swears by this. Pat them dry well with kitchen towel and arrange the meaty bits and boney bits separately.

Start cooking the onions in the medium sized pot (this will be the one that ends up being a pasta sauce) with some olive oil until golden. Remove from heat.

Heat quite a large amount of olive oil in the frypan, and cook the garlic until it's just softened, then remove the garlic using a slotted spoon. Put about 1/4 into the onion pot, and 3/4 into the larger casserole/sauce pot. This is to flavour the oil you are about the brown the rabbit in, however the taste of burnt garlic is horrible and bitter, so you don't want that!

Brown the meaty bits of the rabbit first, on a high flame, sprinkling liberally with sea-salt. Salt is the main seasoning of this dish and it's really important. Seriously salt away  Do this in batches of 4 or 5 bits so it fries up nice and brown and doesn't start stewing just at this point. As soon as the piece is browned chuck it in the larger pot with just the garlic, and keep on frying the bits of rabbit until they are all done. Once you get to the more boney bits, throw them browned into the onion pot  Don't forget to sprinkle liberally with sea-salt whilst frying - both sides! 

As a special "i'm the rabbit chef" thing, i normally fry up the rabbit livers and have them for lunch. just nick a few of the garlic pieces, and eat with a chunk of crusty Maltese hobza (mmm sourdough is teh best!)

To the large pot add 2-3 bayleaves, add about a bottle and a half of red wine, maybe an additional sprinkle of salt and cover, leaving on a medium flame until the wine starts bubbling, then turn right down.

To the small pot add a couple of bayleaves, half a bottle of wine, the rabbit seasoning and the kunserva, stirring till pretty much combined. Make sure the heat is turned right down and cover the pot.

Every 15-20 minutes, just check on the pots, changing the position of the rabbit to ensure that all of them get some "completely covered in wine" time, and also some "partially covered in wine" time. It has to be on the lowest heat possible, so move them to the smallest burners if it's bubbling a bit rather than just a low simmer.

After about an hour, I tend to find that the wine/garlic one is a little liquidy, and the other is dry, so i just spoon a couple of ladles worth of wine sauce stuff into the other. It worked out really well when i did this! If you need to add any extra liquid to either of these, either use the wine from the garlic/wine pot, or simply add water. Do not add ANY wine unless you plan to cook the sauce further for at least another 30 minutes.

The wine and garlic rabbit will be ready after about 1.5-2 hours of cooking, when it's falling off the bone. You could technically serve it right there and then, however it is actually nicer if you leave it to cool, then reheat it that evening, or even the next day!

The "pasta" sauce will need some further preparation. Ok so: once the meat on the boney bits is completely cooked, and falling off the bone, lift all the meaty bits out onto a plate with a slotted spoon. Cool these bits down enough to be able to handle them with bare hands. Wash your hands well, and with your fingers, separate the bones and meat. Once you have done this, add all the meat back into the sauce, and throw away the bones (or leave them for Dad who likes to "mexmex" aka eating the last scraps of meat off the bones).

Boil the potatoes in plenty of salted boiling water until just tender. Quarter (and peel if you like) and toss them with some olive oil, rosemary, heaps of salt and pepper. 


Imqaret 

650g plain flour

175g margarine

85g sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon baking powder

For the filling

360g dates pitted and chopped

grated rind of 1 orange

aniseed liqueur

orange-blossom water

Method 

Sift the flour together with the baking powder. Rub margarine into the flour till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add sugar. Mix well.
Bind it with beaten egg to make a dough. Leave the pastry to rest for 30 minutes.
Whilst the pastry is resting prepare the filling.
Place all the ingredients of the filling into a saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally. Allow to simmer until the whole mixture becomes creamy.
Remove from heat and put mixture in a bowl and leave to cool.
Put the pastry on a lightly floured surface. Roll it out into a 10cm wide strip.
Moisten the edges of the pastry and put the date mixture down the middle of the long strip of pastry, fold over to enclose the date filling. Press the edges together tightly.
With a sharp knife, cut diagonally across the pastry into 5 cm long diamond-shaped imqaret.
Deep fry them in boiling oil until golden brown. Drain thoroughly from the oil and serve hot. Pay special attention when frying them, because boiling oil can be very dangerous.