The farming households of Provence in Elizabeth David’s day (and mine), kept a well-stocked barnyard with hens for eggs (and the soup-pot after their laying days were over), goose for confit, a stye-pig for charcuterie and hutch-rabbits (or guinea-fowl) for Sunday lunch. If, however, you can lay your hands on a couple of bunnies from the wild, so much the better (farmed rabbit is softer in texture and milder in flavour, lacking the complexity and robust chewiness of wild meat). Guinea fowl is as close to wild meat as tame can get - almost as good. If your wild bunny is a tad elderly (you can tell if it comes in fur - teeth long and yellow, nails hard, ears tough) use a sharp knife to trim off the fine blueish membrane which covers the back and legs, and double the cooking time.
Rabbit (or guineafowl) with rosemary
Garlic and rosemary, olive oil and wine enrich lean, dry meats such as rabbit or guineafowl. No need for accompaniments apart from baguette for mopping up the soft innards of the unskinned garlic, sufficient chilled white wine to quench your thirst and, finally, a petite salade of bitter leaves (escarole, frizzée, rocket) to drop into the juices at the end.
Serves 6-8
2 young wild rabbits or 1 farmed rabbit, bone-in, jointed into a dozen pieces
2 tablespoons seasoned flour
8 tablespoons olive oil
1 whole garlic head, separated into cloves
3-4 rosemary sprigs (don’t overdo it - rosemary is strong)
2-3 dried (rather than fresh) bay-leaves (fresh are mildly toxic and haven’t had time to develop complexity)
A curl of orange zest (fresh or dried)
A generous glass white wine (or two)
Salt and pepper
Rinse, dry and flip the rabbit joints through the seasoned flour. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-based pan and fry the joints gently with the garlic cloves until the meat is well browned.
Tuck in the rosemary, bay-leaves and orange zest, add the wine and just enough water to submerge the meat. Bubble up, turn down the heat, season (maybe a pinch of sugar if the wine was a little sharp), lid loosely and leave to simmer gently for 30-40 minutes (or transfer to the oven at 180C/350F) until the meat is practically falling off the little bones and the juices have almost evaporated, leaving a deliciously garlicky, rosemary-flavoured oil as the sauce, removing the little shards of rosemary, zest and bay-leaves, or not.
Eat with your fingers (finger-bowls optional) and squeeze the garlics onto baguette or mash into the juices, as you please.
It's hard enough to find rabbit in my benighted country, let alone WILD rabbit, but I treasure your last bit of advice nonetheless: "a petite salade of bitter leaves (escarole, frizzée, rocket) to drop into the juices at the end." Perfect with just about anything from the farmyard.
Fresh bayleaf as mildly toxic - well, interesting....in my own experience, dried leaves have a spicy warmth - cinnamon, mostly - while fresh leaves are distinctly grassy and lack the spiciness. Toxicity? Folk-belief, as with so much to do with matters herbal. On Madeira, which is pretty much solid bay-forest from mountain to sea-shore (many diff varieties - nobilis inc), locals use the dried leaves as a medicinal infusion (cure-all) and wouldn't dream of using them fresh. And dried bay-leaves are always packed with dried figs in Turkey as an insecticide. Nothing conclusive, just cumulative info. (thx for Atlas Obscura essay - fascinating).