Mustard Chicken, cooked the Rabbit way

We saw a little hedgehog outside our house about two weeks ago. Looked like a baby and it was so cute Rémi couldn't resist putting it in his hands and touching it. Of course, that made the little creature even more scared and curled up.

It's the first time I've come up close and seen a hedgehog alive in Wellington. There's plenty of them here but they are nocturnal. So I've only seen dead ones on the road from inside the car, and will almost immediately turn my head in the other direction. Like the possums, hedgehogs are considered a pest that threaten native plants and birds, so their being smashed by vehicles are not sympathised by environmentalists.

Well, this is not a recipe post of possum pies or hedgehog tarts. I'm going on to talk about rabbit. They are cute, so cute that I refused to eat them as a kid when my grandmother made a nutritious stew out of rabbit meat. So I've never eaten rabbit meat in my life even though I've also never kept rabbits as pets.

But now I am told that rabbits are pests too. They destroy meadows in Europe, and here in New Zealand, they are like possums and hedgehogs. Ok, guilt factor removed, we're already planning to ask Rémi's mom to cook a rabbit dish when we go back to France. It's traditional French dish.

I am also told that rabbit meat taste like chicken. So before I get to try real rabbit meat, I found this recipe on Camille's classic French cooking cookbook: Lapin à la moutarde, meaning Rabbit cooked with mustard. So we decided to try it out, substituting rabbit with chicken.

It's so easy to make, yet so delicious that I think I will do this again and again. Enjoy.

Mustard Chicken (Poulet à la Moutarde)
serves two

2 pieces of chicken (choose your own cut or portion size. we're small eater, so we had a drumstick each. I think thigh or even chicken breast works well, if not better. or use rabbit meat like in original recipe)
2 pieces of bacon
2 sage leaves (I may experiment with other herbs next time)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
About 60ml of liquid cream

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Remove chicken skin. Spread mustard over the chicken. Wrap the bacon around the chicken, with the sage leaves in between. Put in a roasting tin and add about 1 tablespoon of water before putting into the hot oven.

Bake for about 35 minutes.

When the chicken is cooked, take out and transfer the chicken to serving plates. Quickly put the cream into the hot roasting tin and mix with all the juices/fats in the tin to make a creamy sauce. Pour over the chicken.

There's no need to add salt or pepper.

Serve with salad and boiled potatoes.

Baked Eggplant with Cheese and Tomato Pasta

No picture to go along with this recipe as we were too hungry to bother with dressing it up and taking photos.

This recipe drew inspiration from a particular issue of Cuisine magazine that I was browsing during our cafe lunch the same afternoon. There were certainly many other salivating recipes featured, but this one caught my attention because of the simplicity of ingredients and instruction, and most importantly, the week-old aubergine in my fridge that was crying out for me to use today or throw tomorrow.

So I read the instructions more carefully than others. Easy to remember, and straightforward enough to improvise according to our pantry stock.

When dinner time came, with the recipe still vaguely in my mind, we set about cooking the dish. Below is our improvised version, blissfully unaware that the original recipe is actually available online :)

Baked Eggplant with Cheese and Tomato Pasta
Serves two

1 eggplant
1 can diced tomato, or equivalent of fresh tomatoes
some gruyere cheese (or the likes), quantity according to how cheesy you want your pasta to be, I normally prefer to have less, cut half into 1 cm slices, and half into smaller pieces or shred.
3 large handfuls of pasta (choose smaller shaped ones)
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup chicken stock
some fresh herbs, like basil or thyme (we had to use dried ones as the house painter tragically coated our bed of thyme with paint when he spray painted the house weeks ago)
drizzle of white wine
olive oil
salt and pepper

Quarter the eggplant lengthwise, and cut into 2 cm slices. Heat some olive oil and fry the eggplant until golden. Set aside.

Start cooking the pasta according to packet instructions. Also preheat oven at 180 degrees.

While pasta is cooking, heat some olive oil, fry chopped garlic and onions for about 1-2 minutes. Add tomatoes, chicken stock, herbs and wine and simmer. Allow the sauce to thicken and season to taste. Contrary to the original recipe, we opted for a thicker tomato sauce.

When the pasta is ready, drain and pour the pasta into a gratin dish. Follow by the eggplant, half the cheese, then the tomato sauce. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top.

Bake for 30 minutes until it is bubbling hot.