There are few things more satisfying on a cold winter’s evening than sitting down to a meal brought about by your own craft and ingenuity. When a morning spent tracking rabbits across the snowed-in woodlands yields a young hare to serve as the centerpiece to a meal, garnished by shallots from the root cellar, carefully laid aside in summer’s waning, and sour cornichons from the crock, with fresh-baked bread, sliced, toasted and topped with leeks from that same cellar, bacon curing since the fall’s slaughter and cream milked out in the barn at the crack of dawn, this is the stuff of foodie dreams, culinary transcendence.

Returning to reality, though, I would most likely have missed the rabbit (and not for lack of firing, many, many times), my leeks and shallots would be dried up — along with the cow — the cornichons would be used up or spoiled, and poor little Tom Junior would have died of cholera. I have no illusions about my ability to survive in more rustic conditions. Luckily, rather than being dependent on my instincts and wits for survival, I can avail myself of the conveniences of the modern city. Instead of hours spent trying to outsmart small furry animals, a leisurely bike ride to Clancey’s is all I need to obtain a rabbit, conveniently skinned, eviscerated and frozen — as well as some awesomely gelatinous beef stock. And while our urban living situation has forced Martha and me into quarters too small to house a root cellar with sand-filled barrels of leeks and shallots, the co-op keeps a good supply these and other allia going pretty much year-round. As much as I like to romanticize the food and eating styles of the past, I’m grateful for the modern food system. (Thanks Monsanto!)

But even if modern life doesn’t demand a strictly local and seasonal diet, we shouldn’t overlook recipes developed with a place and time in mind before such considerations were optional. There is something perfect about a steaming pot of heavy stew on a winter’s night when the snow is falling in fat flakes and the fact that I can buy asparagus in February isn’t going to change that.

The dishes that follow both come from Madeleine Kamman’s When French Women Cook, specifically the chapter devoted to Marie-Charlotte. Raised in Poitou, France and later located in Paris around the turn of the last century, for Marie-Charlotte seasonal and local were realities rather than trends. These two recipes are satisfying ways to use up the remnants of the winter larder, but are equally satisfying when the only foresight required is a trip to the grocery store in advance of a big snowstorm.

Lapin aux Echalotes at aux Cornichons

I have only prepared and/or eaten rabbit a few times in my  life, and this recipe produced the best tasting one yet. I thought the use of pickles to the stew odd but their sourness combined in a familiar and delicious way with the sweetness of long-roasted shallots. For having such a short ingredient list, this produces a very flavorful stew.

On cutting up rabbits: The recipe as printed simply called for a young rabbit, but the first time it is referred to the instructions they are called “rabbit pieces”. If your rabbit came whole like mine did, here’s how I cut mine up: remove the hind legs and the forelegs. Slice off the flaps of belly meat from either side. Cut tight along the backbone to remove the loins from both sides of the rabbit. There may be a couple of tenderloins floating in the cavity — cut them out. Reserve the ribcage and backbone for stock (I just throw it in with my chicken carcasses). To promote even cooking, tie the tapered end of the loins back over the loin to produce an even cylinder. Roll the belly meat around a piece of tenderloin each and tie into an even bundle.

• 4 T butter
• 2 dozen large shallots, peeled
• 1 young rabbit (I didn’t ask mine’s age)
• Salt and pepper
• 1–1 ½ cups brown veal stock (I used the excellent beef stock from Clancey’s)
• 6 small sour pickles, sliced.

Heat the oven to 325ºF. Heat the butter in a large, straight-sided pan. Sauté the shallots until just beginning to brown. Season with salt and pepper. While you’ve got the salt and pepper handy, season the rabbit pieces and stir in with the shallots. Allow to brown a few minutes and then transfer the pan, covered, into the oven. Bake 40 minutes, basting at regular intervals with the juices that will accumulate in the pot. (I basted every ten minutes.) Raise the oven temperature to 400ºF, remove the pan and cover and stir in the pickle slices and the stock. Return to oven, uncovered, and bake an additional 20-30 minutes until the rabbit pieces are well browned on one side (do not stir after uncovering) and the sauce is reduced to a glaze.

Roties aux Blanc de Poireaux

Garlic toast topped with a mixture of leeks, bacon, cream and goat cheese — probably not something you should eat every day, but after trying it you might be tempted.

• 3 T butter
• 1 large leek
• Salt and pepper
• 3 oz bacon
• 1 cup cream
• 1 oz goat cheese
• 6 slices french country bread
• 1 clove of garlic
• Parsley, chopped

Melt the butter in a large skillet, add the leeks and cook over low heat, covered, until the leeks are quite soft and reduced. Season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, chop the bacon into a rough ¼” dice and cook in a small skillet until crisp and most of the fat is rendered out. Drain the fat and reserve for another use and add the bacon to the leeks.

Add cream to bacon-leek mixture and allow to cook on medium low heat, uncovered, until cream is much reduced. Stir in goat cheese to melt. Cover and keep warm.

Toast the slices of bread and rub each with the garlic clove. Top each slice with a healthy spoonful of leek-bacon-cream-goat cheese mixture and sprinkle with parsley. Serve hot.

On my first trip to The Four Firkins I bought several beers, some that I had read about and was excited to try, and others simply because of the awesome packaging. Maredsous 8 Dobbel fell into the latter category; how could I resist a bottle that looks like this?

At the time of my trip I had not reached the Belgian abbey ale section of The Brewmaster’s Table so for a time the Maredsous just sat on a shelf looking pretty. I soon reached the aforementioned section and the Maredsous specific paragraph:

Maredsous 8 Dobbel derives its number from the pld scale of Belgian degreees, referring to the strength of the original wort. The beer has a beautiful garnet color and raises a rocky tan head. The aroma is terrific, a dance of biscuits, rum, and raisins. The beer opens up on the palate with foamy pinpoint carbonation and a light bitterness. It seems sweet at first but then dries as flaors of concentrated raisins, dark sugar, and dark rum combine with a winy acidity to bring the beer to a long finish. At 8 percent, this beer is a bit stronger than most dubbels.

On the color, certainly, Oliver was right on; this beer is beautiful to behold:

Tasting the beer, I realized my palate isn’t nearly as developed or sensitive as Oliver’s (okay, I realized this long before I tasted this particular beer, but it underscored the point). Where he tastes raisins and dark sugar I tasted a very strong roasted, carmelly flavor. Which is not to say the beer was excessively heavy; on the contrary, it had the pleasant floral-citrusy-fruitiness that I usually associate with ales. There was also a slight bitterness from the hops, but it was not strong.

One of the best parts of this beer was the carbonation—it feels spritzy and alive on the tongue with bubbles that tickle, rather than bludgeon, as they burst. And I suppose the 8% alcohol was also a best part, although as you can see I compensated by drinking a smaller glass. All things in moderation.

A great beer on its own, what got me most excited about Oliver’s description of Maredsous 8 Dobbel were the pairing notes:

A fine beer to match with short ribs, beef cheeks, leg of lamb, venison sausages, country pâtés, and wild boar.

Country pâtés! Anytime I see those words my heart brightens up, my brain starts churning and my mouth starts watering (the increased heart activity may be in anticipation of all the fat and cholestorol one of these pork loaves packs into my bloodstream). I’ll take just about any excuse to make a terrine, and a bottle of Maredsous seemed better than most. Terrine is neither a fancy nor a technically demanding dish—it’s just meatloaf!

I used:

• 1# Chicken Liver
• 1# Ground Pork
• 1/4# Bacon
• 1/4# Pork Sirloin Chop
• 1/2 c minced parsley
• 3 sprigs minced rosemary
• 5 cloves minced garlic
• 1 c blanched almonds
• 3 T Bourbon
• Allspice, Nutmeg and Cinnamon
• Salt and Pepper

The main meats (liver and ground pork) are pretty standard for country terrines. I chose the herbs because they were on hand and needed to be used up. I had two reasons for including  the almonds; I wanted the chunkier texture and visual interest  that whole almonds impart, and we recently overbought almonds so I am putting them in everything. The pork chop was also to get a chunkier texture; I cut it into half-inch cubes and mixed it in with the forcemeat. The bacon is there for keeping everything moist and fatty, and the other ingredients are pretty standard.

I really loved the chunky texture of the almonds and diced pork—I prefer coarse terrines to fine. The almonds also gave the whole loaf a strong nuttiness that makes a great counterpoint to the richness of (lots of) pork fat.

The pork fat was really the force that drove this pairing. The carbonation of the beer was great for cutting through all that richness and lifting it off the tongue. The mildly citrusy-fruitiness had a similar palate-cleansing effect. The very slight hoppiness in the beer was magnified by the herbs, and the herbs by the hops. The caramel flavors that were so apparent when tasting the beer on its own were still there but didn’t seem to add or detract from the terrine. A sweeter or more darkly-roasted dish might prove a better complement to those flavors. But with an excuse to both drink beer and make a terrine, I can’t complain. Not that I need an excuse.