Rabbit lasagne

I agree, sounds strange, but tastes devine! A very tasty original spin to the classic lasagne.

Ingredients(for 2 persons):

• 250gr fresh lasagne sheets
• a small bag of grated parmesan cheese
• 500gr rabbit meat, without bones, preferably the white meat (back, thigh)
• 5 cloves of garlic
• thyme, sage, rosemary and marjoram
• salt & pepper
• 12,5cl vegetable stock (make it with 25cl water and 1 cube of veggie stock)
• 5cl of dry white wine
• 3 tomatoes
• olive oil
• for the bechamel: 70gr butter(unsalted), 70gr flour, 1l whole milk, a little bit of nutmeg and a pinch of salt

How to:

Cut your peeled garlic cloves into 4 and together with your herbs, put it in a frying pan with some olive oil. Add a little salt and put it on the side for a minute.

Take another frying pan, add some olive oil and put the stove on high. Bake your rabbit with just a little pinch of salt and pepper until it's nice white, with  a light golden color. Take it our, cut it into small pieces. If it's still on the bone, take it off the bone, it's ok if it's not completely baked through yet. It still needs to go into the oven.

Add the meat to the garlic and herbs and add the wine. Let it steam for a couple of minutes, stir so it won't burn.

Add the veggie stock now and let this simmer for 20 minutes on a low stove. Mine only needed 15 minutes before all the liquid had vaporized. This is not necessary, if you still have a nice thick sauce left after 20 minutes, leave it like that.

Peel your tomatoes, you can put them in hot water for a second and then quickly cool them before peeling. Or you can use a marvelous peeler like mine from Victorinox, this is one I can recommend to even the best chef in the world, it peels tomatoes effortless like it was an apple. Check it out here  Victorinox universal peeler .

Get rid of the seeds and cut into small cubes.

Precook your lasagne sheets, even if the package says that this is not necessary. It just makes the texture and taste nicer and it helps to prevent them from sticking together.

Depending on the thickness of the sheets, cook them 1-3 minutes.  Cook them in salted water with a bit of olive oil. Cook 3 sheets at a time max. Pick them out with the handle of a wooden spoon and immediately dip them in a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process. Lay them out on a kitchen cloth next to each other.

Now to make the béchamel, it's an easy one we'll make. I always make mine in a frying pan with a fork, but this is a personal preference. Melt your butter, add the flour and bake-stir until the color starts to change so you're sure that the 'flour-taste' has gone. Poor the cold milk in bit by bit, make sure you don't have lumps. Add milk until you have a nice consistency, not too thick, not too thin. Add the nutmeg and personally I like to add some parmesan cheese as well, not too much though.

Let's put our lasagne together now. You start with a bit of béchamel so the pasta doesn't stick to your tray. Then pasta, béchamel, a third of you rabbit, some tomato cubes and repeat this 3 times. Last you put on a layer of pasta, parmesan cheese on top for a nice crust and a couple of tomato cubes.

Put it in a preheated oven of 180°C for 30-40 minutes.

Your original lasagne is ready, it'll be a sure hit!