Rabbit Loin Cigars with Demi-Glace, and Personal Potatoes Gratin

Tonight we take a trip to France, from our kitchen of course. The secret to French cooking as Julia Child will inform you, is butter. Yep, butter--oh and wine never hurts either. I started my cooking adventure at approximately 5:00 this evening. I knew the Potatoes would take the longest, so that is where I started.

The mandelin came through for me, making the potato slicing quick and simple. I layered the individual ramkins--which I picked up from Kohls earlier in the afternoon-- with potatoes and a few scallion slices. Next, the simple process of melting butter, making a roux (in this case, butter and flour) and adding the milk and cheese.

Into a hot oven, preheated at 400*, and that is done. Next I started my demi glace, which is essentially beef stock, some carrots and garlic simmered down to almost nothing. Then you add a half cup of wine, and let that simmer.


Finally, we came to the main course. It is now 6:50, and I have everything time just about right. Except, I made a simple mistake: I didn't check to see if my rabbit was deboned, which it wasn't.

This took some knife skills which I didn't know I had, but eventually I had several pieces of rabbit ready for my puff pastry. I added my mushroom mixture, as well as a few stalks of frozen asparagus which I had let defrost over the steam of my demie glace. I wrapped it all up, and put it into my now reduced heat oven of 350*. The cooking time, for me, was not at all what the recipe I was following suggested. It was in for over an hour, unlike the "10-15 minutes" suggested.


So, now for the taste review: The meal was good. Perhaps if I had paid attention and purchased a deboned rabbit, the meal would have been even better. The timing caused the potatoes to get a little darker around the edges than I had hoped. But the demi-glace was extremely nice, a subtle wine flavor with the beefy undertone. I have this meal a 4 1/2 stars. Not the best I've made, but definitely worth it.