Cooking with two Italian gourmands at our home

Rabbit and horse meat as well as a variety of animal organs
and intestines are commonly used e.g. in the Mediterranean cuisine,
but unfortunately these are underutilized in Scandinavia cuisine.

In this coming Saturday, our 13 guests will receive a memorable enogastronomic experience and I will have the pleasure of cooking with two Italian gourmands at the comfort (or discomfort) of my home kitchen. As mains/secondi we will have Apulian Horse Sausages (Salsiccia Equino), Braised Rabbit (Coniglio in Bianco) and veal sweetbreads with Marsala (Animelle al Marsala). Prior to this we will have some risotto (ai funghi porcini); served as first dish/primo piatto. As starters/antipasti we will have:

My version of Boquerones/Alici Marinate (i.e. marinated anchovies with vinegar, lemon, olive oil, garlic, capers, peperoncino and parsley), to satisfy a request of my dear French friend.
Classic scallops with mushrooms & white wine (Coquilles St Jacques), just because I can.
Snails in garlic butter, because this dish is so moreish.

The preparations will start on Thursday as I will prepare the horse meat sausages according to a traditional Apulian recipe, given to me by Domenico Dargenio. On Saturday, Domenico will finish the dish by preparing the sauce (il sugo) using Mutti's datterini tomatoes (the sweetest and meatiest tomatoes in the market!) on soffritto base and grill/fry the sausages. Alessandro Belardetti will slowly braise marinated rabbit bits. In addition to the starters, I will also take care of the sweetbreads and risotto. Cooking with many cooks at a home kitchen can be challenging, but I am pretty confident that we can pull this out.

KEEP CHECKING THIS SPACE FOR MORE PICTURES AND BLOGGING!

Salsiccia Equino Pugliese

Horse meat sausages (half for immeadiate use and rest can be stored in a freezer):
3 kg horse steak meat (e.g. roast), minced
650–750 g of pure pork fat, minced
a palmful of fresh parsley, finely chopped

2–3 teaspoons of salt (more salt can be added later when cooking the sauce!)

1–1,5 teaspoons of black pepper, freshly grinded

natural skin, lamb

Combine all the ingredients together in a large bowl.

Sausage mix should look like this.

Horse sausages are long and thin.

Sauce: prepare soffritto with fresh French garlic only in a large hot pan with 5–7 tbsp of olive oil. Then add the sausages (approx. 1,5 kg) and brown them in medium flame for less than 2 minutes, then pour in some white wine. When the wine has mostly evaporated, put 1–1,5 kg of Mutti's datterini tomatoes into the pan and continue cooking for 15 minutes. Check salt and pepper, and add more if needed.

Mamma mia! This is delicious!!!

Coniglio Romano in Bianco

3 medium sized rabbits
Marinate (mix in a food processor)
Garlic, 4 glovesShallots, 4
Calabrian peperoncino, half with seeds
Fresh rosemary, couple of twigs
Salt
Olive oil, 4 tbs
White wine, 1/2 dl

Cooking: with olive oil and white wine. (You can also add e.g. green olives, capers and tomato sauce depending on your taste: see here).

Soak the rabbit meat in water with a cup of white wine vinegar and 1 tbs of salt (brine) for two hours to remove blood and urea. Remove from the brine and rinse. Chop the meat, rub in the marinate and bring to room temperature. Take a large saute pan which you can place in the oven too. Braise the meat with olive oil first, then semicover the meat with white wine and let simmer on stove for 2 hours. Now move the sauce pan to an oven (<70°C) to intensify the flavours (for up to 1/2 hour). Serve with a green salad tossed with salt, balsamico and olive oil.

According to some of our guests as rabbit connoisseurs thought that this dish beat the French classic mustard rabbit (Lapin à la moutarde)!!! Sometimes the flavor and smells count more than look!

Animelle al Marsala, for recipe see e.g. GialloZafferano

Acciughe Crude al Limone, see e.g. Giardini Naxos.

Coquilles St Jacques, see e.g. How to cook the perfect coquilles St Jacques

Risotto ai Funghi Porcini, see e.g. GialloZafferano

Thank you!