RICHARD'S RABBIT PIE

Ingredients:

• 100ml olive oil

• a little flour

• 4 rabbit legs

• 1 large onion, roughly chopped

• 1 clove garlic

• a small bunch of thyme

• ½ bunch of tarragon

• 1 litre chicken stock (see page 181) or water

• 100ml double cream

• 1 leek, roughly chopped

• a small handful of morels, (optional)

Pastry:

• 300g plain flour

• a pinch of salt

• 150g butter

• 2 egg yolks plus 1 egg, beaten for glazing

Method

If you like, you can make up the filling the day before and have it ready in your pie dish in the fridge.

First make the pastry. Put the flour and salt into a bowl and rub in the butter until you have fine crumbs. Add the egg yolks and a turn of black pepper and mix to a smooth dough (you can do all this using a food processor if you prefer). Roll into a ball, cover and chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Flour the rabbit legs, season well and colour lightly on all sides. Remove the legs from the pan.

In the same pan, sweat the onion, without colouring, for 4-5 minutes. Add the garlic and thyme, then the browned rabbit legs. Cover with stock or water, bring to the boil and simmer gently for no more than 40 minutes. Remove the rabbit legs and set aside to cool.

Pass the liquid through a fine sieve into a clean pan and bubble up to reduce by half. Add the cream and simmer for 15 minutes until you have a smooth sauce. Check the seasoning.

Blanch the leeks for a minute in boiling salted water and drain.

Take the meat from the rabbit legs and mix with the morels, if using, the leek and tarragon. Put this mixture into an ovenproof dish. Pour the sauce over and allow to cool, then chill in the fridge for an hour or so, just to firm everything up ready to take the pastry.

Dampen the edge of the dish with water. Put something like an upturned egg cup in the middle of the filling to help prop up the pastry. Roll out the pastry and drape over the top. Crimp the edge, brush with beaten egg and leave to rest in the fridge for 1 hour, to firm up the pastry and prevent it shrinking when you bake it.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4.

Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown. If you insert a skewer through the pastry into the filling it should come out hot.