Maltese Cuisine

Rabbit stew (stuffat tal-fenek)

Cuisine: Maltese Created by Paul Camilleri

Stuffat Tal-Fenek - a marvellous slow cooked dish that’s full of flavour, the meat so tender it falls off the bone. Maltese families love to use the rich tomato sauce with pasta as a first course and serve the rabbit with vegetables as a main.

Ingredients

1 rabbit, 1.5 – 2kg

Marinade
350ml red wine
3 fresh bay leaves
4 cloves garlic, peeled

Sauce
1 brown onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
3 fresh bay leaves
3 tbsp tomato paste
1.5 litres tomato purée
1 cup water
80ml extra virgin olive oil
Peeled potatoes, cut into chunks

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Preparation

Marinade
Combine marinade ingredients in a large bowl.

Remove rabbit kidneys and liver and chop rabbit into 12 pieces. Remove front and back legs, cutting each in half and cut saddle into 5 pieces. Place rabbit pieces, kidneys and liver into marinade and refrigerate overnight, turning several times.

Strain rabbit, reserving liquid and discarding garlic and bay leaves.

Sauce
Preheat oven to 150oC.

Heat oil in a heavy based over medium heat and gently brown meat on all sides, seasoning with salt and pepper. Cook until well sealed and golden.

Remove from pan and set aside.

Fry onions and garlic to release flavour, then add tomato paste, reserved red wine and cook for a minute. Add tomato purée and water and mix well.

Return rabbit to the pan, add bay leaves and potatoes.

Cover with lid and bake for 2 ½ - 3 hours.

Maltese Restaurants

Displaying 4 of 4 Maltese Restaurants.

Restaurant		Suburb
1.	The Original Maltese Cafe	Surry Hills
2.	Maha Bar & Grill	Melbourne
3.	Pastizzi Cafe	Newtown
4.	Cafe Valletta	Sydney

08 May 2012 09:13 AEST

Doreen

Greystanes

Shop

where can i get rabbit from?

17 Dec 2010 04:54 AEST

alfred cremona

Qormi, Malta

stuffat tal fenek

When cooking this recipe, it should be cooked over a slow fire and not i n the oven. Some green peas should also be added. Normally the sauce is served with spaghetti and the Rabbit and potatoes as the main dish/ Excellent.

04 Oct 2010 10:34 AEST

Paul

st albans

i want it now

i want it now!!!!!!!!!

01 Sep 2009 04:18 AEST

Mark

Very tasty dish

Love this recipe...but rabbit is so hard to find in the UK - though it's well worth trying. In response to Julieanne, I think the cheese is gbejna(s)/gbejniet(p), small Maltese (Gozitan?) cheeslets, usually from sheep or goat's milk, often coated in black pepper.

10 May 2009 01:10 AEST

Julieanne Matzkov

Tannum Sands

Sounds like great flavours

I love your show and can't wait to try this Maltese recipe, but am not sure if I can get the cheese mentioned as an accompaniment to the past in the Rabbit Stew recipe. Can you please spell it for me, it sounded like Jilbaniek?

08 May 2009 08:57 AEST

Lyndon

Stanmore, NSW 2048

A Maltese Treat - Mr Cigaru!!

We love your show - AND with many Maltese friends, And visiting Malta a couple of years back, we loved all the food in Malta. Rabbit stew is one of the Maltese National dishes that we had every couple of days and loved it. The recipe is easy and good winter food.

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