Some of you will be surprised to read this, but Annalena possesses a sense of intellectual curiosity. It DOES extend beyond cooking, but usually not. And that is what produced the dish of which you are reading.
Annalena scans menus from favorite restaurants frequently, because she needs a life. Last week, early in the week, she saw a reference on a restaurant menu to "stemperata." She did not know this word, and via the miracle of google, she learned that this is a SICILIAN (not Italian) dish (this becomes important, ragazzi), that is centered around the Ragusa area.
Annalena was there last year. No one served her stemperata (or, as her gal pal Niki, the Sicilian comet) gently corrected her "STIMPERATA" (it IS Sicilian: we go with what the Sicilians say).
PROBABLY, Annalena never saw this because she ate in restaurants in Sicily. As she has written before, Annalena learned that Sicilian cuisine has very much developed into a homestyle cuisine: you cook and eat this at home, and a restaurant cusine: you eat this in a restaurant. Why would you eat, in a restaurant, what you would cook and eat at home?
Sicilians are not the only ones who follow this rule, ragazzi, so keep it in mind when you're travelling: if there is a dish that your relatives or friends made for you, and you're in the place of origin, you may not find it.
So, Annalena began reading about "stImperata." The Sicilian comet advised Annalena that, while you almost always see it with swordfish and chicken today (Annalena would add: sausage), originally, it was made with rabbit.
Now, Annalena loves rabbit, and this recipe does use rabbit. If you want to make it, but bunny gives you the skeeves, use chicken.
What Annalena also learned, is that like cassoulet, or caponata, or any dishes that are "classics," there is very little agreement on a canonical recipe. Annalena SWEARS she read over 200 of them, both in Italian and English (good practice for those of you studying languages other than your native tongue by the way), and eventually said "OK, andiamo nella cucina e cucinamo" And so she did. And this is her version, taken from a pastiche of many.
Here are your ingredients:
Some of these ingredients were in EVERY recipe: the green olives (although "how many" or "how much" is a point of dispute), onion, celery, capers, red wine vinegar, raisins. Annalena added a few things that were in some, but not all of the recipes: carrots, honey (instead of sugar), pine nuts and garlic. Finally, what you do not see, are the rabbit legs marinating in red wine. This was an outlier, but she found it in a very respected collection of Italian recipes, and hey, if Annalena can use wine, perche non (why not).
So, the rabbit legs (or chicken legs), sat in a cup of wine, and a thinly sliced onion, for three hours. At the end of that:
You don't see much change in the rabbit legs, but do you see the garnet color of the onions? Keep that in mind as we go forward. In fact, what the wine is doing is breaking down the protein. Wine is acidic. Acids break down proteins. This is the same process as in ceviche, or sauerbraten, or many dishes.
While these were marinating, Annalena prepared her other ingredients: peel and slice two medium carrots into coins (if you're using them), cut up 3-4 stalks of celery, chop the onion, set your capers to water to remove the salt, and chop up the garlic. Smash and pit your olives. The quantity ranged from "15" to " a handful" to "some". This is family cooking at its best. Annalena had 12 left. Her hands are big.....
There are no pictures of the prep because, really, do you want to see Annalena cutting carrots? Well, when you've finished, and you're ready to cook, first of all, remember to separate the capers from the water.
Rabbit is very lean, so you'll want about a third of a cup of olive oil here. If you're using chicken, you may want to cut that back to 1/4 of a cup. Get the oil hot, and brown whatever you're cooking. Don't worry about cooking it through. We'll get back to that:
The rest of this, is ridiculously easy. Use that oil, which has picked up some of the protein flavor, and add EVERYTHING but the vinegar. Stir those veggies up, and then, after about 3 minutes, add the meat:
Remember the vinegar? Well, while the veggies are cooking, get 1/3 of a cup of red wine vinegar, and add about 2-3 tablespoons of sugar OR, if you're being authentic, 2 tablespoons of honey (honey is actually sweeter tasting than white sugar). Now, if you marinated your protein in the wine, add it. And then, pour the agrodolce (the vinegar and sweetener, over everything. Let it cook for five minutes. You'll get something like this, and the wine will evaporate off:
Now, cover the pot, and lower the heat. You need to finish cooking the meat. Rabbit is dense, so you'll need 20 minutes or so. Chicken, less so. If you did swordfish, you're gonna be good in 5 (and you better NOT have used red wine).
When finished:
Ragazzi, don't judge until you try it. Folks have eaten rabbit for thousands of years, and still do (some day, ask Annalena to tell you her Japanese rabbit story). If you just can't get your head around it, well, Annalena is ok with you using chicken, although she thinks you should try guinea hen (her sisters know this as faraona). DO make this. The sweet and sour flavors will remind you of caponata (and sometimes, stimperata is referred to as a relish), and you will add this to your repertoire. Annalena guarantees it.
For our musical treat: while pronouncing "stimperata", Annalena kept on thinking of Linda Ronstadt singing "Desperado," so....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJN7Zy2PzQI
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