Italian Friulian Braised Rabbit | Coniglio alla Friulana
Coniglio alla Friulana goes against the Italian instinct. Almost everywhere else a rabbit destined for the pot gets red wine, tomato and olives. In Friuli it gets dry white wine, and specifically Friulano, the grape called Tocai until the name passed to Hungary in 2007. The sauce finishes the colour of weak honey, and the aromatics are rosemary, sage and crushed juniper.
That is geography rather than fashion. Friuli Venezia Giulia sits where the Alps, the Veneto plain, Slovenia, Austria and the Adriatic press against each other, and its kitchen kept the central European habit of cooking meat in white wine and finishing it with butter long after the rest of Italy moved to tomato. Juniper arrives from the same direction.
The technical interest is that rabbit is not one meat. The hind legs are worked muscle with real connective tissue and want time. The saddle is lean, fine grained and dry within minutes of overcooking. This recipe puts the two on separate schedules in one pot, which is what separates a good coniglio alla friulana from the tough version most people have eaten.
Yield: 4 main course servings. Prep: 35 minutes. Cook: 1 hour 20 minutes. Rest: 10 minutes. Total: about 2 hours 5 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: secondo. Region: Friuli Venezia Giulia.
The Story
Rabbit was the farmhouse meat of the Friulian plain for the reason it was everywhere in poor agricultural Europe: it needs no pasture, eats what the kitchen garden discards, breeds fast and feeds a family without the commitment of killing a pig. In the courtyards around Udine, Cormons and Cividale almost every wall carried hutches, and the animal was killed young, at eight to ten weeks, while the flesh is still pale and mild. This is smallholder cooking, not game cooking, and there is almost no fat to work with.
The white wine comes from directly outside the door. The Collio and the Colli Orientali have grown Friulano for centuries on ponca, the marl and sandstone of those hills, and the wine it makes is dry and firm with a bitter almond finish. Farm kitchens used what the neighbour produced, and here that meant white. The name changed from Tocai after a European ruling gave the word to Tokaj.
Juniper is the Alpine half of the recipe. It grows wild on the slopes of Carnia and is used here as across the old Habsburg kitchen, to give lean meat a resinous depth fat would otherwise supply. Sage and rosemary come from the Mediterranean side of the same region, and a braise carrying all three is a fairly exact map of a border.
Ingredients
For the rabbit
Whole rabbit, cleaned, 3 lb (1.35 kg), jointed into 8 pieces
Fine sea salt, 2 tsp (12 g), divided
Freshly ground black pepper, 1 tsp (2 g)
All purpose flour, 2 tbsp (16 g), for the legs only
For the braise
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Unsalted butter, 2 tbsp (28 g)
Pancetta, cut into small dice, 3 oz (85 g)
Yellow onion, finely chopped, 1 medium, 6 oz (170 g)
Carrot, finely diced, 1 medium, 3 oz (85 g)
Celery stalk, finely diced, 1, 2 oz (55 g)
Garlic cloves, lightly crushed, 3
Dry white wine, Friulano preferred, 1 1/2 cups (360 ml)
Light chicken or rabbit stock, 1 1/2 cups (360 ml)
Juniper berries, lightly cracked, 8
Fresh rosemary sprig, 1
Fresh sage leaves, 6
Bay leaf, 1
Whole black peppercorns, 6
For finishing
Unsalted cold butter, cubed, 1 1/2 tbsp (21 g)
Flat leaf parsley, chopped, 1 tbsp
Lemon zest, finely grated, from 1/2 lemon
Extra virgin olive oil, a few drops per plate
Fine sea salt and black pepper, to taste
Preparation
Step 1
Joint the rabbit into two front legs, two hind legs, the saddle in two or three pieces and the ribs, keeping legs and saddle separate. Salt with 1 1/2 teaspoons of the salt and all the pepper and refrigerate uncovered 30 minutes, so the seasoning reaches inside the muscle. Dust the legs alone with the flour.
Step 2
Heat the olive oil and the 2 tablespoons of butter in a wide heavy braising pan over medium heat, add the pancetta and cook about 5 minutes until the fat has run out and the dice are golden. Lift them out and reserve. That fat carries every flavour from here, since rabbit has almost none.
Step 3
Raise the heat to medium high and lay the floured legs in one uncrowded layer, in two batches if the pan is narrow. Leave them 4 to 5 minutes untouched, until the underside is a real hazelnut brown, then turn for 3 to 4 minutes more. This fond gives the sauce its colour.
Step 4
Lower the heat to medium and add the onion, carrot, celery and crushed garlic. Cook 8 to 10 minutes, scraping the brown deposits off the base as the vegetables release water. Keep the soffritto soft and golden but never caramelized, since a dark soffritto pushes the braise toward sweetness.
Step 5
Pour in the wine all at once, raise the heat and let it bubble hard 3 to 4 minutes while you scrape the base clean. The tartaric acid does the tenderizing work here, but the alcohol must be driven off or the pale sauce keeps a raw spirity edge butter will not cover.
Step 6
Return the legs and pancetta, add the stock, juniper, rosemary, sage, bay leaf and peppercorns and bring it to a bare simmer. The liquid should reach two thirds up the legs, not cover them. Cook with the lid ajar at the gentlest simmer 45 minutes, turning once. A rolling boil shuts the fibres.
Step 7
Slide the saddle into the liquid, spoon some over it and cook 18 to 22 minutes only. Lean and fine grained, with very little connective tissue, it is done when a skewer meets no resistance and the centre reads about 160°F (71°C). Rest all the meat on a warm tray, covered, 10 minutes.
Step 8
Strain the liquid through a fine mesh sieve, pressing the vegetables, and skim the fat. Reduce over medium heat until two thirds of the volume remains and it coats a spoon. Off the heat whisk in the cold butter a cube at a time, then the parsley and lemon zest. No flour: the gloss is gelatin from the leg bones.
Plating
Serve this hot and on hot plates. It is a lean braise with a butter bound sauce, and both the gloss and the aroma are gone within a minute on a cold plate, so warm the plates to about 140°F (60°C). Give each portion one leg and one piece of saddle so the plate carries both textures, set the leg slightly behind the saddle, and spoon the sauce around and partly over the meat. Scatter a few reserved pancetta dice, add the parsley and a few drops of good olive oil, and grind the pepper at the table.
In Friuli the accompaniment is polenta, soft from the pot or set and grilled, and it is the right one: an acidic saline sauce wants something starchy and plain underneath. Grilled Treviso radicchio or boiled greens dressed with oil also work. Avoid potato purée, which competes with the butter in the sauce.
Professional Technique
The defining decision here is white wine as the braising medium, and in Friuli that is a border rather than a preference. This kitchen looks north and east, toward Austria and Slovenia and the Habsburg habit of cooking meat in white wine and finishing it with butter, and it never took up the tomato and red wine braise of the peninsula. Friulano carries roughly 6 to 7 grams per litre of total acidity, mostly tartaric, against 5 to 6 in a typical Italian red, and brings that acid with no anthocyanins and almost no tannin. Acid hydrolyses collagen faster than heat alone, so the legs tenderize sooner and the flesh stays pale. A red would add tannin that binds to lean protein and reads as dryness.
The second technique is treating the animal as two ingredients. Rabbit is not homogeneous the way a chicken more or less is. The hind legs are locomotive muscle with real collagen in the joints and want 45 minutes or more of sustained low heat to convert it. The saddle is a lean loin with almost no connective tissue, at its best around 20 minutes and irreversibly dry by 35. Cooking both for one period means one is always wrong.
The third is the binding. There is no flour in the finish, and the 2 tablespoons on the legs are there for browning. The body of the sauce comes from gelatin that the leg bones and joints release over 45 minutes of gentle cooking. Reducing by a third concentrates it until it coats, and cold butter whisked in off the heat emulsifies into that gelatin rich base. It also explains why the braise must never boil hard, since agitated gelatin and butter split.
Texture and Moisture Control
Rabbit is 2 to 3 percent fat, less than skinless chicken breast, and every texture problem follows from that. There is no intramuscular fat to keep the meat moist once water has left it, so moisture is defended rather than replaced. Three controls do it: the dry salting 30 minutes ahead, which helps the muscle hold water; the liquid held at a bare simmer around 190°F (88°C), since above that the fibres contract and expel their water; and the liquid reaching only two thirds up the legs, so the exposed surfaces cook in steam and keep their browning.
The two cuts need judging differently. In the legs, collagen converts to gelatin from about 160°F (71°C) and continues over time, so they pass through a stage of cooked but tough before arriving at tender: a leg still tough at 40 minutes wants more time, not more heat. The saddle has no such reserve and dries steadily once its centre reaches the same temperature, which is why the rest matters more to it. The sauce is an emulsion, not a reduction alone, so stop while it just coats a spoon and add the butter off the heat in pieces.
Professional Mise en Place
This braise is almost entirely a make ahead dish and better on the second day. The only constraint is that the sauce is bound with butter at the last moment and the plates must be hot.
Equipment and tools
Wide heavy braising pan with a lid, big enough for the legs in one layer
Boning knife and heavy knife or shears for jointing
Fine mesh conical sieve and a small ladle
Instant read thermometer
Small whisk and a warm tray for resting the meat
Prepared ahead
Rabbit jointed, legs and saddle separated, dry salted, 1 day ahead
Soffritto cut to an even fine dice, 1 day ahead
Pancetta rendered and the dice reserved, on the day
Braise cooked to the end of the leg stage, refrigerated, 2 days ahead
Braising liquid strained and skimmed cold, easier than hot
Service setup
Meat held in a little unreduced liquid at about 150°F (65°C), covered
Strained liquid reduced and held warm, butter added per order
Cold cubed butter, parsley and lemon zest within reach of the stove
Plates hot at around 140°F (60°C), polenta soft over a bain marie
Reserved pancetta warm and dry in a small pan
Chef Tips
Buy a young rabbit and look at the colour. Pale pink and almost odourless flesh means a young animal. Darker redder meat with a distinct smell means an older one, which needs 20 minutes more on the legs and still tastes stronger than this dish wants.
Use a wine you would actually drink, and a Friulano if you can find one. It is a third of the total liquid and not hidden by tomato or long reduction, so anything oxidized or sweet will be recognisable in the sauce. Avoid heavily oaked whites, whose vanilla fights the juniper.
Crack the juniper berries with the flat of a knife rather than adding them whole or grinding them. Whole berries give up very little in an hour, and powder turns the sauce resinous and faintly medicinal. Eight cracked berries sit behind the meat without disappearing.
Cook it the day before. Refrigerate the meat in its unreduced liquid, lift the solid fat off in the morning, reheat gently and finish the sauce at the last minute. The seasoning evens out overnight and skimming becomes trivial.
Common Mistakes
Cooking the legs and the saddle together. The commonest fault with rabbit, and it guarantees one of the two cuts is wrong. Give the legs 45 minutes alone and add the saddle for the last 20.
Using red wine because it is a braise. Red brings tannin and pigment that darken the sauce and read as astringency on meat with no fat to soften them. This dish is built on dry white wine.
Boiling instead of simmering. A hard boil contracts the fibres, forces out the little moisture rabbit has and breaks the emulsion. Keep the surface barely trembling.
Not browning the legs hard enough. Pale meat gives a pale thin sauce, because most of the depth comes from the fond on the base of the pan. Take them to real hazelnut brown.
Covering the pan straight after the wine goes in. Undriven alcohol leaves a raw spirity note that survives the braise and is obvious in a pale sauce. Let the wine bubble uncovered first.
Thickening the sauce with flour or cornstarch. It gives a dull opaque sauce and a pasty mouthfeel, and the leg bones release enough gelatin to give body once the liquid is reduced.
Drowning the rabbit in liquid. Submerged meat poaches, loses its browning and dilutes the sauce. Bring the liquid two thirds up the legs and let steam finish.
Wine Pairing
Collio Friulano DOC: The wine already in the pot and by a distance the best match on the table. Grown on the ponca marl of the Collio, it is dry and firmly acidic, with pear and field herb aromas and a bitter almond finish. That acidity meets the reduced braising liquid on its own terms, and the almond runs alongside the juniper.
Ribolla Gialla Collio DOC: The other historic white of these hills and a firmer alternative. High in acidity and noticeably saline, with citrus peel and a faintly phenolic grip. That grip scrubs the butter off the palate as a softer white cannot, and its lemon edge picks up the zest in the sauce.
Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso Friuli DOC: The Friulian answer for anyone who wants a red with rabbit. Refosco has firm acidity, medium tannin and dark plum fruit with a faintly bitter herbal finish, and wants serving at around 59°F (15°C). Its acidity stays in the same register as the sauce and the tannin is low enough not to dry lean meat.
Schioppettino Friuli Colli Orientali DOC: The most interesting pairing here and the closest aromatic echo. This light to medium bodied red from the Colli Orientali is defined by black pepper and crushed juniper, the same family the braise is built on. Fine tannins and bright acidity flatter the meat instead of covering it. Serve it cool.
Alto Adige DOC Pinot Nero: A step west along the same Alpine border, and the right choice when a red is wanted with no weight. Mountain Pinot Nero is pale, high in acidity and low in tannin, with sour cherry and an undergrowth note. Nothing masks the sage and juniper, and the acidity cuts the pancetta fat.
Storage & Reheating
This is one of the braises that genuinely improves overnight. Keep the meat on the bone and submerged in its unreduced strained liquid in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, since bare pieces of rabbit dry out within hours. Reheat slowly to about 160°F (71°C) in a covered pan over low heat, or 20 to 25 minutes in a 300°F (150°C) oven, never in a microwave, which drives the water out of lean meat.
Finish the sauce fresh every time. Reheating a butter emulsion splits it, so reduce the strained liquid and whisk in the cold butter at the moment of service. The saddle is best eaten the day it is cooked, since it has no fat reserve. For the freezer, cool the meat in its liquid and freeze the two together for up to 3 months, then thaw overnight. Never freeze the finished sauce, which separates irreversibly.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 main course portions and excluding polenta or any other accompaniment:
Calories: 520 kcal
Total Fat: 29 g
Saturated Fat: 11 g
Trans Fat: 0.4 g
Unsaturated Fat: 17 g
Cholesterol: 165 mg
Sodium: 780 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 7 g
Fiber: 1.5 g
Total Sugars: 3 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 54 g
Lactose: 0.3 g
Principal micronutrients: vitamin B12, niacin, selenium, phosphorus, iron, potassium, zinc
These figures are estimates. Rabbit is unusually lean, so most of the fat comes from the pancetta, the oil and the finishing butter rather than the meat, and the sodium depends on how salty the pancetta and stock are.
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