little bunny, big money

[kindkit]

My plan to boil a bunny on Christmas (okay, okay, to braise a rabbit for Christmas dinner) has been thwarted. There is apparently only one shop in town that sells rabbit, and it charges $11 a pound. That's about $30 or even more for a single rabbit. I couldn't afford that even if I was willing to pay as much for a damn rabbit as I would for a decent piece of beef.

So now I need to rethink Christmas dinner. I still want something simple, easy to cook, and not too expensive, but also special. Anybody got any ideas? I'm still very much leaning towards a stew or soup, because even though, say, a roast is simple, it requires lots of other dishes to go with it, whereas a hearty soup or stew is a meal in itself.

Comments

[oursin]

What???!!! I think one might pay about that in poncey UK butchers for a whole bunny that had led a free and natural life in the wild, and farmed would be cheaper.

Lamb is certainly a good suggestion - though I find with different butchery habits and different cut preferences it's hard to make recs for cuts. For a nice stew or braise I would go for neck of lamb or lamb shank, and cook very slowly.

[tree_and_leaf]

Duck legs can be wonderful.

[kindkit]

Food tends to be a bit expensive where I live, and especially anything "specialty" or "gourmet." My city is quite sharply divided between rich (such as film directors and actors who have second--or third or fourth--homes here) and poor, and any organic or local or specialty foods are marketed towards people with ridiculous amounts of money. I've given up going to the farmers' market because I can't afford to buy anything, which is a huge contrast to where I used to live, where the farmers' market had better produce that was sometimes cheaper than the supermarket and at worst, no more expensive.

I like lamb, but I have to cook it with strong spices because otherwise the taste of the lamb fat is a bit too much for me. I cook a lot of lamb curries.