Chocolate Easter bunny: or rabbit mole

We have a tradition in our household, going back to my days as an undergrad, that we cook up a rabbit every year at Easter.  It's true.  We cook the Easter bunny.  And every year, he's delicious.

This year, I had grown a tad bored with my standard preparation of rabbit, so I decided to do two traditional cute Easter critters.  For main course, we served grilled leg of lamb.  That's become a standby recipe here in the Dude household.  Well, what about appetizers?

Well what says Easter more than the Easter bunny?  I suppose it's a chocolate Easter bunny!  So here we go, Rabbit Mole.  It's rabbit.  It's chocolate.  It's spice.  Yum.

Modified from the New York Times:

8 dried ancho chiles
2 cups boiling water
1 cup drained, stewed whole tomatoes
¼ cup sesame seeds
1 tablespoon oregano
2 whole cloves
2 whole allspice
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
9 cloves garlic, peeled
1/4 cup ripe banana
2 tablespoons dry bread crumbs
¾ ounce bitter chocolate, melted

Soak the ancho chiles in the hot boiled water for half an hour (heat off).



Turn a couple times, to ensure you wet the entire chile.  Remove the stems and seeds from the chiles.  Save 1 tablespoon of the now brown soaking water.  Toss the ancho meat into a blender.

Meanwhile, toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan over medium heat for a few minutes, until they start to turn brown, or until they're nicely fragrant.



Toss the sesame seeds in the blender with the ancho meat.  Add the oregano, tomatoes, cloves, allspice, cinnamon and garlice.



Blend until smooth.



The photo doesn't quite do justice to the colour.  It's a darker, chocolate brown colour.  Add the banana, bread crumbs and melted chocolate.  Blend until smooth.  For the rabbit:

1 tablespoon bacon fat
1 2 1/2-pound rabbit, cut into 5 pieces - 4 legs and the saddle
1 medium onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste
2 cups chicken broth

Fry up some homemade bacon to generate some bacon fat.  Add the rabbit to the hot fat.



Brown a few minutes on each side until nice and caramelized.



Add onion, garlic, salt, pepper and thyme.



Sauté until the onions are soft.



Add the chicken stock.  Simmer on low heat for 30 minutes.



At the end of the 30 minutes, remove the meat from the stock.  Pull the meat off of the saddle, so that the difficult to access back and rib meat is pulled free.  Coarsely chop the meat.  Leave the leg meat on the legs.

Put the mole sauce into the chicken broth/onion/herb mixture.  Season (if needed - I added about half a teaspoon of salt).



Add back the shredded meat, and the four rabbit legs.  Cook for five minutes to warm the meat (you don't want to overcook the rabbit).

Serve with homemade tortillas.  (My favourite recipe here).



This was a delicious recipe.  Mild in spice.  Rich in flavour.  Thick and tasty, a nice start to a hearty Easter dinner.

Happy Easter.