The Easter Bunny... Barbecue style

Easter was for us this year a rather timid affair; both of us working at various points throughout yet we still managed to get the allotment dug over and planted up with potatoes (Duke of York), onions, shallots, garlic, broad beans and rocket; borage, lovage and oregano went into my herb pots and seed trays now adorn the kitchen windowsill filled with the potential of tomatoes of every hue and size.

Thus the dinner menus were also a tad subdued. Usually I go overboard with great legs of lamb and new spring greens but lamb is tricky to track down and I didn't have that much time. Easter Sunday turned out to be a roast chicken, but with goose fat-roasted potatoes, purple sprouting broccoli and the last few tiny baby leaves of kale from the allotment sauteed with garlic and a sauce made from pan-deglazing, white wine, crème fraiche, tarragon and halved green grapes.

But it was Saturday's quick meal that was really the highlight of the weekend. My freezer is chock-full of meat, mainly due to my inability to just say 'no' at the amazing cuts of beef at the farmers' market. However at the back was a whole jointed wild rabbit - of course - the Easter bunny, just waiting to be lovingly consumed at this appropriate junction. However, I didn't want to do the KFB recipe and I started thinking about the Deep South and barbecue.

Now, I know rabbit, with its tendency to dryness and its physical layout ain't that similar to pork ribs but I had a yearning for smoky barbecue sauce, coleslaw, cornbread and so on. SO:
Either the day before or in the morning, concoct a rub for the rabbit, mixing together a good slug of 3 of olive oil (helps keep the rabbit moist) with a tablespoon of paprika, ground ginger, cumin, a little (or a lot of) chilli powder, salt and pepper and a touch of mace or nutmeg if you haven't any. Leave the rabbit to marinate.

For the barbecue glaze, mix together English mustard, ketchup, cider vinegar, sugar, starting with a tablespoon of each and double the amount of ketchup and then tasting as you go. I added a dollop of barbecue sauce and a little of the smoky chipotle Tabasco I seem to have hanging around. You want it to be sweet, smoky, punchy with mustard and ultimately finger-licking.

Heat the oven to 180C and tip your now rather angrily-red bunny into a roasting tin, paint with half the glaze and whack in the oven for 15 minutes. Then remove from the oven, paint with the rest of the glaze (cover the tin with foil if you think it's burning a little with the sugar) and put back in for another 10 minutes. At this point the rabbit is cooked, but you may want to give it 5 minutes with the foil off to enhance the stickiness.

We had this with own-made cornbread (recipe to be posted), coleslaw and a garlicky, lemony baby spinach and tomato salad.

Naan, Pitta - whatever, it's good

It's a very quick and easy flatbread recipe - good for dunking, stuffing and even discus throwing when stale - hours of amusement from just 4 ingredients.

250g self-raising flour
2 tbsp bio yoghurt (the yoghurt-ier the better, if you know what I mean)
1/2 tbsp salt (3/4 tbsp is a tad too salty for my taste, you may feel differently)
About 100ml water

Mix together the first 3 ingredients, then slowly add the water and stop when you have a soft, slightly sticky dough - you may not need all of it - I added a tad too much and spent a jolly 10 minutes peeling it off my hands and back into the bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel and leave it to rest for 30 mins or so. It won't rise, btw.

When you're ready to bake, roll out amounts the size of an egg into a pleasing shape - perhaps oval - about 1/2 cm thick. Heat a dry frying pan till really quite hot, then throw it in, give it 30 seconds, turn it over and then keep warm in the oven till needed. I drizzled mine with sumac and olive oil and served them with bbq-d quail rubbed with ras-el-hanout, hummous (I only make my own now - more later), bbq-d aubergine slices drizzled with pomegranate molasses, salad and I think that was it.

They re-heat the next day v successfully either wrapped in foil in the oven or just heated in the frying pan again. And as I said, you can serve them with curry or take them down the Middle Eastern route.