- Ben, why don't people eat more rabbit?
- I don't know.
- Was it Bugs Bunny?
- He was a bit of a jerk actually.
- Are they intimidated to cook it?
- I am.
- Is it because people have them as pets?
- They really shouldn't,
they're actually pretty mean as pets.
- So we're here at Bywater American Bistro.
We're gonna go see our good friend, Nina Compton.
She's gonna teach us
how to cook a whole rabbit and make a curry.
- Welcome to New Orleans!
- Cheers Ben.
- Where did you get that glass of wine?
- I'm in New Orleans.
- I don't have one, thanks a lot.
(upbeat music)
Welcome!
We are in New Orleans
and when you are in New Orleans,
one of the very first things you have to do
is visit Nina Compton.
Nina, thank you so much for having us today.
- My pleasure, my pleasure.
Welcome.
- [Ben] Thank you.
- We are absolutely so excited,
and today we're gonna talk about rabbit,
which is not something that we
have a lot of experience with at the butcher shop.
A lot of restaurants in New York don't serve rabbit.
You do.
So I think that touches on like one of the first
barriers to entry with rabbit is that
people are like, "Oh it's cute, I can't eat it".
But, it's actually like, a sustainable food,
and they're actually really easy to cook.
- Yes.
- Why do you think people don't eat more rabbit?
- It's very lean as well, so there isn't a lot of meat,
so it is tedious, but I think it's really worth it.
- You're gonna use the whole animal,
you gotta get all that meat off of it.
- Yeah, it's a lot.
I had a friend that Frenched the ribs,
I'm like how did you do that?
They're so tiny.
- [Ben] We're doing a curry today, correct?
- Yes.
So let's start.
- Yeah, let's do it.
Excited to talk about them because
whole rabbit, kinda like a whole chicken,
you really should buy the whole thing.
- We get the rabbits from Sweet Caroline in Mississippi.
I'm just gonna open it up, so you see here it's pretty lean.
And I think people can do at home.
So you treat it almost like a chicken
where you
cut the quarters off.
- [Ben] Just like right under the breast.
- Right under yes.
- Oh that's gorgeous.
You can tell how fresh these rabbits are
just looking at them.
- Yes.
- There is such thing as a rabbit loin,
it's ridiculously small and adorable.
Is that something that you can actually serve?
- You can,
so it's right here.
So it looks like almost like a little tenderloin.
- Looks exactly like a tenderloin.
- And that is so tiny by the time you cook it,
it's smaller than my pinky,
so we just keep it on.
- This is great because even when we break these down
in the shop, the very few times we ever have them,
it's very much kind of like a
traditional way that you would imagine like a
butcher in a movie chopping it up,
it's just like whack, whack,
you just like, the two shoulders are separated,
the two loins are separated.
(upbeat music)
Can I do a couple?
- [Nina] Yes.
I have close to zero experience with rabbit.
In New York you just don't see rabbit on menus,
it just isn't there.
We've been in New Orleans 20 hours
and we've seen it on several menus.
It's really exciting but like,
I know it's a blind spot in my own
butchering and restaurant experience,
I haven't eaten it, I haven't cooked it at all at home,
literally ever.
- Treat it like a chicken.
(upbeat music)
- So when we first opened the shop,
we wanted to carry different things so we
did get fresh rabbits
but we could only by them buy the case,
so it was 12 rabbits,
we were a new business,
I mean--
- It's a hard sell sometimes.
- A small business so we'd maybe sell two a week.
I personally love them,
I just don't wanna de-bone them every week.
- It's a lot of work because,
like I said there isn't a lot of meat
and the bones are so tiny,
so it is quite tedious when people say
I'm gonna de-bone a whole rabbit.
You do the whole thing like this,
the yield is so low.
But it is pretty delicious.
So we're gonna cure these
in equal parts salt and sugar
for four hours.
And then we're gonna confit them.
We roast the torso
and then we add brown chicken stock.
It is worth that time curing it I think
it's just like brining anything else.
It's just adding that salt
all the way through the muscular tissue.
- Yeah, so you're really building several layers
of rabbit flavor into this one dish.
- Yes.
- Wow, so four hours, binge watch
your show that you wanna watch and then
come back and cook for hour, hour and a half.
- That's how we do it.
(laughing)
So we're gonna cure these,
if you wanna grab the salt and sugar.
- Yes ma'am.
So it's not, it doesn't need to be measured out,
it's just cover the surfaces--
- Yeah so you wanna do like just a light cure.
I think a lot of people tend to
put too much salt sometimes
and that really cooks the outside of the rabbit
and you don't want that.
Just be generous, treat it with respect
and that really helps for the end product of what you get.
- [Ben] Yeah.
The legs are gonna be the majority of our meat.
- Yes.
We do one leg
per order and then
part of the curry built into the sauce
is gonna be some of this meat.
(upbeat music)
So we're gonna put these away
and then we're gonna roast these
and then we're gonna start building the curry.
- [Ben] I wish I was more adept
at using this amount of spices.
This is like a neverending math equation.
- It's a lot, but it's like,
it's a skill I wish I had.
- What I the inspiration behind this rabbit dish?
- So yeah it's curry,
I'm from Saint Lucia and curry's a big thing for us,
that's my comfort food,
like on a rainy day I want a big bowl of curry
and some rice.
We have a lot of open-air markets,
and you go down to the market at 5 a.m.,
it's full of produce and fish and beef
and everybody's just like gathering,
and you can smell
the fresh thyme, you can smell the fresh curry leaves,
you have cinnamon.
Smelling those aromas, I'm like
this just makes sense to just
put this with fish or put this with rabbit or chicken,
it's just something that just came second nature to me.
With all these spices,
it's really a pain to pick the spices out,
so we just tie it up in a sachet.
So here we have star anise,
and then clove,
coriander,
and then a lot of cardamom.
To build any curry I think the biggest spice
that is really the most fragrant
is the green cardamom.
- I know curries are kind of
can be even family-specific, not just region-specific,
so is this
is this your family or is this your specific way
that you've developed.
- This is my way that I like to do curry.
I think a lot of people
don't use fresh curry leaves enough,
I don't see them very often.
It just sets that curry apart I think.
Okay so then I'm gonna have you tie up
one of the torsos.
- [Ben] So far what we've built is for the broth?
- [Nina] Yes.
(upbeat music)
- [Ben] And now we're gonna build a curry?
- Now we're gonna build a curry.
Nice hot pan,
olive oil,
onions.
- This is great,
I've never made it with someone who's like,
"No, I actually know what I'm doing."
(laughing)
- I think for the home cook,
I think it's really not going too extreme
with some spices,
I think a lot of people go too forward on some spices
and it kind of kills everything,
you have to find that happy balance of
what you really wanna shine.
Do you want it to be the cardamom?
Do you want it to be the cinnamon?
(upbeat music)
And then we're gonna add
our sachet.
Just tuck it in there.
And then we're gonna add the torso
back into there.
And then we're gonna let this simmer
just until all the meat comes off
and it's nice and tender.
- I mean for the amount of flavor
that's going into this,
this is actually like, once it's prepared,
once you have everything together,
fairly simple.
It's not too much,
like I was having an anxiety attack
with everything on the table,
now it's like, oh,
all these things together, wrap them up,
put them here, and then--
- And it's not that hard because I think
this is something that somebody can do at home and just
set it and forget it.
It's very, very simple.
This is restaurant-style but you could do it without
braising the torso,
you could buy the legs
and confit them and make the curry jus separately
and then just finish it.
- It's an approachable project.
You know you're gonna get the meat from the legs,
you're building a spice kit,
and then this is,
this already looks like it's gonna feed us for a couple days
and we're using the whole rabbit.
You bought the whole thing,
you're gonna use the whole thing,
plenty of meat but also just a ton of flavor,
I can only imagine this left over day three
is like even better.
- Because the flavors like really marinate.
(upbeat music)
So now the curry is done
so we're gonna pull the rabbit out
and I'm gonna keep the sachet in here.
So then I add the coconut milk
once the braise is done.
Let that come together.
So we plate our jasmine rice.
And I'm a big textural person so
we top it with toasted
you say pecans or pecans?
- I say pecans.
- You say pecans.
I kinda go back and forth,
I flip flop sometimes,
I don't even know what I say.
- [Ben] Yeah, I had to think about it for a second,
I was like, I can't remember.
- Put the curry on top.
There's the leg.
- [Ben] Oh that is beautiful.
- You really wanna put a nice amount of the curry.
Because that rice really soaks everything up.
- Also just the way that curry smells,
I want a lot of it.
- Three days.
I'll give you some to go,
you'll have it in three days.
- [Ben] That is gorgeous.
- [Nina] And that is for you guys to eat.
- Wow.
- This is so exciting.
- You have actually managed to take the intimidation
not just out of curry but like out of
cooking a rabbit.
I actually feel pretty confident about this now.
- Good.
Well cheers.
- Cheers.
- Welcome to New Orleans
and rabbit and curry.
Cheers.
- [Brent] Thank you so much.
(upbeat music)
- This is so fantastic
but also so New Orleans specific.
Fantastic dish, thank you so much.
- The texture's phenomenal.
I thought it would just be like
braised into just kinda being like mush,
but it's, it really has still that body to it.
I just realized I've been cooking rabbit wrong.
- I mean that also makes it so approachable
that like you're gonna buy the whole thing
and you can actually do this
in an hour and a half.
Like that's an,
actually achievable weeknight meal.
- It also makes sense you would use the thigh
because I mean even looking at the animal,
the thigh is by far the biggest part,
it's the meatiest part,
everything else has a lot of smaller bones to it
and you're gonna have to braise it
or have an intern like just pick all that meat off.
- I know.
- It presents totally approachable
like a chicken leg does,
but you kinda know, oh there's just two bones,
you don't have a ton of tiny bones.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
Wow.
- If you like chicken, you'll like rabbit.
It's like even lighter than chicken
and everyone in the world likes chicken,
and so go buy a damn rabbit.
(upbeat music)