Ah, the ever-popular Stuffat, the dish that screams at you from every Maltese restaurant’s menu – boasting to be Malta’s national dish. Well, it practically is our national dish, and most of us do eat it every Sunday, religiously. The Stuffat can be enjoyed during Winter or Summer, as a first course and as a second course. And it tastes unequivocally Maltese. Why not try your hand and making Malta’s national dish yourself?
Ingredients
1 rabbit, (approx 1.5kg, cut in small portions)
2 onions, chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled
5 large tomatoes
2 tsp kunserva (tomato paste)
5 potatoes, peeled and quartered
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
200 g peas (fresh or canned)
6 bay leaves
Pinch mixed herbs
Freshly ground pepper & Salt to season
500ml red wine
1 tsp olive oil
Method
- Marinate the rabbit overnight in the red wine (marinade to include the garlic, garlic, salt & pepper
- In a large pot, heat the olive oil, and add the rabbit until slightly brown.
- Add the onions, carrots, potatoes and the tomatoes, and pour half of the marinade on the ingredients.
- Bring to boil on a high flame for about 15 minutes
- Add the remaining wine, peas, bay leaves, kidney and liver and simmer on low heat for about 2 hours, stir occasionally and add some more wine if the sauce begins to dry up.
- Cooking variations – you can choose to make the rabbit stew to look browner by reducing the number of tomatoes and kunserva use, I personally prefer the rabbit stew to have very little tomato past even if it is served with spaghetti.
Spaghetti with rabbit sauce as a starter
Boil some spaghetti (leave al dente) Cover with some sauce from the rabbit stew, do not add any rabbit pieces if you are serving rabbit stew as a main course, but you can add some of the rabbit liver to the sauce serving Finely grated Parmesan cheese can be added on top.
Happy Cooking!
