Recommendations
Rabbit in mustard sauce with Boompjes Old Dutch Genever
In the roasting pan are four rabbit legs that have simmered for an hour with breakfast bacon, onion, thyme and bay leaf, in a sauce of white wine, stock, cream and coarse Zaanse mustard. Set against it is an old genever with twenty percent malt wine that has aged for three years in American bourbon casks and picked up some vanilla and wood.
From the shelf
The bottle
Boompjes Old Dutch Genever comes from the Onder de Boompjes distillery on the Buitenhavenweg in Schiedam, a house that goes back to 1658. It is an oude jenever of 38% vol in a 70 cl bottle with 20% malt wine, distilled from a mash of malted rye, malt and maize and distilled three times. The malt wine spent three years in American bourbon casks, which gave it vanilla and wood, and was then blended with fresh mandarin peel and juniper berries. For the designation oude jenever, at least 35% vol and at least 15% of the alcohol from malt wine is required; with 20% malt wine this bottle is just above that.
The combination
Why this works together
Rabbit in mustard sauce is a dish of two extremes: the meat itself is lean and delicate, almost neutral, while the sauce of 250 milliliters of cream and two tablespoons of coarse mustard is thick, rich and sharp. A young genever would cut through the cream but has nothing to set against the rabbit and leaves the meat empty. This old genever does both: its twenty percent malt wine brings a grainy sweetness that lifts the delicate rabbit meat, and the vanilla and wood from three years in a bourbon cask run along with the cream and the fried bacon. The mandarin peel in the blend gives a citrus note that the mustard can bear without being softened, and the juniper finds the thyme and bay leaf in the pan. At 38% vol there is also enough alcohol to truly clear the cream fat.
At the table
The dish
- For 4 people
- Ready in 1 hour and 45 minutes
- Type main course
What you need
- 50 g unsalted butter
- 4 rabbit legs
- 100 g breakfast bacon
- 1 onion
- 3 sprigs of fresh thyme
- 2 dried bay leaves
- 250 ml dry white wine
- 250 ml chicken stock made from a stock cube
- 20 g wheat flour
- 250 ml whipping cream
- 2 tablespoons Zaanse mustard
How to make it
- Heat half of the butter in a roasting pan. Sprinkle the rabbit legs with pepper and salt and brown them all over, about 10 minutes. Take them out of the pan and leave the cooking fat in.
- Meanwhile cut the bacon into cubes and chop the onion. Strip the thyme leaves from the sprigs.
- Fry the bacon in the frying fat for 5 minutes and add the onion after 2 minutes. Add the thyme, the bay leaf and the wine and let the sauce reduce by half over medium heat in about 5 minutes.
- Put the rabbit legs back, pour in the stock, cover the pan and let everything simmer gently for 1 hour.
- Melt the rest of the butter in a saucepan, whisk in the flour and cook for 5 minutes over low heat to make a roux.
- Take the legs and the bay leaf out of the pan. Add about 450 ml of the braising liquid to the roux, stirring constantly, and bring to the boil.
- Pour the thickened sauce back into the roasting pan, stir in the cream and the mustard, put the legs back and heat them through for 5 minutes over low heat. Season with pepper and salt.
In the glass
Serving
Pour the Boompjes Old Dutch at room temperature into a tulip glass, filled to the rim. With this bottle that is no formality: the vanilla and oak from three years in a bourbon cask only open up at around 18 °C and are barely to be found at fridge temperature. Put the bottle on the table and do not add ice; water or cold here actually silences the cask that the dish picks up.
Everything about Boompjes Old Dutch GeneverBack to Recommendations from ’t Bockje
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