The number of variations on rabbit in mustard sauce are simply astounding. Some recipes call for white wine, but many do not. Others use boneless rabbit meat, while many recipes keep things rustic, using whole rabbit pieces, bone in. Some cooks use roux and cream to thicken the sauce, others count on sour cream or crème fraiche. A number of recipes don’t bother to thicken the sauce at all, preferring a lighter (and, no doubt, healthier) approach.
Only three components were in common to all the recipes I read, and they were: 1) rabbit, 2) mustard (universally of the Dijon variety, often grainy Dijon), and 3) some kind of dairy product.
[This babble continues....]
Given the vast array of possibilities, I had to decide on a preparation that made the most sense to me as a cook, the recipe that I would most enjoy eating, as well as the recipe that bestowed the most honor and respect to the rabbit. The rabbit, after all, is the real guest of honor here.
Unfortunately, the recipes that “rang true” for me were the ones calling for crème fraiche. I say “unfortunately,” because crème fraiche is hard to find, at least in this area. It’s one of those hit-or-miss items that only sometimes appears in the dairy aisle, usually during the holiday season (and disappears, along with eggnog, by mid-January). But I have my heart set: Lapin à la moutarde with crème fraiche. Nothing else will do!
Thick, sweet cream with a only a hint of sour counter-bite, crème fraiche has the enormous advantage of being stable at fairly high temperatures. It will not curdle when boiled. Sauces made with it do not “break,” curdle or lump, as a some sauces do when they get too hot or the fat in the emulsion separates from the other liquids, or it sits out on the table too long on the table. Add a bit of sugar or maple syrup to crème fraiche and whip it and you have a novel dessert topping, or a white cloud on which to float fresh berries.
On the off chance that one of the local groceries had crème fraiche at this time of year, I stopped at a number of stores on my way home from work last week. Sure enough, mid-September is not the season for crème fraiche in the Mahoning Valley. Even the Giant Eagles stores in Boardman and Poland, OH, which I can usually count on to have the more “exotic,” up-scale ingredients, did not have any.
It’s true that I could drive to Cleveland or Pittsburgh and be back in a few hours with as much crème fraiche as any cook could want. It’s also true that I could probably talk to a local store manager and have the missing ingredient in a two to four days, but . . . hey! What’s the fun of that?
Why not just make it myself? I thought. After all, I’ve made yogurt before. I bake bread. How much harder could it be to make crème fraiche?
How to Make Crème Faiche
As it turns out, making your own crème fraiche is bonehead easy. Simply add a small amount of buttermilk (in my case, ¼ cup) to heavy cream (2 cups) in a jar, put a lid on it, and let it ferment at room temperature for 24 hours. (NOTE: Do not use the “ultra” pasteurized buttermilk and cream, or the culture will have trouble growing.) Then put the jar in the refrigerator for at least another 24 hours before using. When it's done, it should be about the same density and texture as sour cream.
That's it.
The method itself is hardly worth a photograph, in my opinion, but other Americans clearly disagree. Below are a few links to video (video?!) demonstrations of how to make crème fraiche:
- This one is made by a macho-sounding homecook guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ-g2EmqdBs&NR=1
- And here we have an apparent professional chef (who says it only takes 8 to 12 hours for the culture to set, but she must be living somewhere like Texas or Southern California, somewhere very warm, because my crème fraiche took the full 24 plus 24!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwiMJfKBeUg&feature=related
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