Rabbit

Rabbit is genuinely everyday meat in Crete and across rural mainland Greece, where hunting is still a normal part of autumn and winter, and farmed rabbit sits in most Greek butchers alongside chicken. The meat is pale, very lean and mild, closer to chicken than to any red meat, though a wild animal is darker, firmer and considerably stronger in flavour than a farmed one.

Kouneli stifado is the dish it belongs to: jointed rabbit braised with its own weight in small whole onions, red wine vinegar, red wine, cinnamon and clove until the meat pulls away from the bone. The vinegar does real work beyond flavour, softening lean meat over a long, slow cook. Rabbit is braised with hilopites, the small egg pasta squares, in mountain villages as well.

The parts cook at different speeds, which is what catches people out. The saddle is the leanest piece and is ready well before the front and hind legs, so it is worth adding it to the pot later, or lifting it out early, rather than letting it dry while the legs finish. A wild rabbit wants longer than a farmed one, and an older animal longer still.