The name is challenging and so is the recipe: Rabbit Royale brings to mind important tables set with food, stories of haute cuisine, sophisticated settings, and the desire to amaze guests. Luca La Peccerella, chef of the refined restaurant L'Orangerie in Bossolasco, a charming village of 600 souls in the Alta Langa known as the town of roses - there are over 350 ancient and rare varieties scattered along its streets - actually starts from a completely different inspiration, not to amaze but to accompany his customers on an emotional gastronomic journey in constant balance between his two souls: his Campanian origins, decisive, sunny and the homage to the territory he has chosen as his adopted place and which has offered him inspiration and professional satisfaction.
His royal rabbit thus tastes of Mediterranean alleys, sounds, scents, it recalls the rural-marine panoramas of Ischia, of the Sorrento peninsula and at the same time it tastes of the suggestions of a historical cuisine linked to a territory that from its proximity to France has inherited sophisticated preparations with a strong taste and scenographic impact.
The setting is an old farmhouse from the 2th-XNUMXth century, an ancient farmhouse where most of the families of the small Piedmontese village have always worked. After a long conservative renovation lasting about XNUMX years, today it has changed its appearance and has become a place of luxury hospitality, a relais where good taste, atmosphere, pleasure and relaxation are essential elements of every moment of the day.
The chef arrived here with a wealth of experience accumulated over the years at important names in the restaurant business: Armani Hotel Milano, Bulgari Hotel Resort by Ritz Carlton, Sporting Club Sardegna in Porto Cervo and collaborations with some of the great international masters of cuisine such as Danny Bowien, Yoshihiro Narisawa, Inaki Aizpitarte of Le Chateaubriand in Paris, the Peruvian Virgilio Martinez, Magnus Nilsson, of Järpen in Sweden, the great René Redzepi, of the legendary Noma in Copenhagen, and Gennaro Esposito, of the Torre del Saracino in Vico Equense.
"My cuisine - explains La Peccerella - is the result of the strong bond I have with my land and the paths I have had the opportunity to follow. The desire is to project "ancient gestures" that have been lost today, but that transmit the original Mediterranean tastes and flavors. Since I was a child I followed my grandmother who prepared handmade pasta and weighed the flour with her fists while she named the person who would then eat it. I therefore grew up with the idea that cooking is an act of altruism, a gift, a sharing. The Royale of Carmagnola Grey Rabbit starts from the idea of the Ischian rabbit revisited with the flavors of Langa and using its products. A Royale that requires many steps, an academic, intense and very satisfying dish”.
The recipe for La Royale of Carmagnola grey rabbit
Ingredients:
2 whole Carmagnola grey rabbits of about 2 kg
300g fresh foie gras
8 juniper berries
1 clove of garlic
2 bay leaves
Chicken livers 250 gr
Green beans 200 gr
Tomato concassea 50 gr
Mascarpone 150 gr
Chives to taste
50 g Alba white truffle
Lard 200 g
For the marinade:
Thyme to taste
Celery 1 ribs
Carrot 2pcs
3 cloves garlic
Arneis 1l
White peppercorns 16 pcs
Juniper 8pcs
For the rabbit stew:
100 of stale bread
50 g clarified butter
20 grams of water
Salt 10 gr
Rabbit Stencil
For the sauce:
mushrooms 300 gr
white truffle 20 gr
butter 100 g
cognac to taste
lard 200 gr
Procedure:
Bone the rabbit from the belly without breaking the skin, keep the bones for the rabbit base, stretch the rabbit well after deboning it with the help of a meat tenderizer. Leave to marinate for 12 hours together with the aromatic herbs.
Foie gras:
Season the foie gras with salt, pepper, thyme and port. Form a 5 cm diameter ballotine and pierce it, then close it in a torchon and cook in water with wine, juniper and bay leaves for 7/8 minutes. Cool in plenty of water and ice.
The filling:
cut the chicken livers with the bacon and brown in a saucepan, deglaze with cognac, cool quickly to get ahead with the next preparation.
Assembly:
when we have the foie gras ready and the liver stuffing, remove the rabbit from the marinade and clean it from the aromatic herbs, spread it out well, place the liver stuffing followed by the ballotine of foie gras, roll everything well and form a nice cylinder that we will wrap in layers of film and a nice taut cloth. Cook at 62 degrees for 36 hours.
Rabbit Tuna:
add scraps of rabbit bone and cook them under vacuum at 62 g for 36 hours together with oil, pepper, salt and white wine obtaining a mixture that frays, season with the tomato puree, mascarpone, green beans, black olives and stuff the rabbit with bread.
For the rabbit chips:
blend butter, bread, water, salt and obtain a smooth mixture, spread it on the stencil and bake at 160 degrees for 10/11 min it must be crunchy.
The sauce:
chop the shallots, add the rabbit carcasses and brown them in the butter, add the cleaned and roughly chopped mushrooms, blend with arneis, Martini, Pernod and add star anise and a little marinade, a little veal jus and cook for about 3 hours. When serving, add the foie gras butter so that it looks shiny and well bound.
Plating:
Place the rabbit cylinder in the center of the plate after having been coated, fix the rabbit sandwich at the top right on the edge of the plate and complete with the white truffle at the exit.
