After reading Seetoh's column, I'm thinking of introducing this to my restaurant menu if there is sufficient demand. Will start small and see how people like it.
Rabbits are low fat, high protein and delicious.
I will have to find a good reliable source or even breed the rabbits myself. A fertile mother rabbit can produce 30 offspring a year. Rabbits can be butchered when they are about 2 kg in weight.
Who's game for rabbit?
By K F Seetoh, Food guru
WHENEVER someone asks me what is the strangest thing I've eaten - a question I cannot answer as I simply classify food as edible and inedible - I entertain him with my experiences with smoked donkey, shark's liver or snake skin hotpot.
Now, I've got another dish to add to the list.
The thing about travelling as a makan anthropologist in a place like Chengdu in Sichuan, China, is that minders and friends - despite knowing that I'll try even tree bark if it's simmered well - will point me to a prettified 'lao wai' (foreigners) local eatery.
At these places, the carefully crafted menu, English-speaking staff, slick uniforms, posh trimmings and annoyingly smooth service are a turn-off to me.
It's too well-packaged, like the Singapore Sling in a merlion mug.
WANTING MORE
Then, a Singaporean friend, who has been running an advertising agency in Chengdu for the last five years, hooked me up with Ms Nicole Xieyang.
Nicole owns a polished Euro-style cafe called Salome Cafe.
Named after the tragic opera by Richard Strauss about Princess Salome in Herod's kingdom, the cafe sells a chill-out dining experience with its comfy sofa seats, wireless Internet access and set meals to tickle the fancy of local office workers.
I was piqued by Nicole's mala (chilli sauce with Sichuan peppercorns) pasta.
But I was looking for more exotic stuff.
After introducing me to her refined pear, snow fungus and rose tea and her romantic predisposition to poetry and arts, Nicole finally read my thoughts.
'Let's do rabbit's head tomorrow,' she said.
'It's a very popular and traditional street Chengdu dish and it's sold only in street-side eateries.'
Now that's poetry which resonates with me.
After a quick zippity-doo through a few alleys and lanes near the airport, we were seated on small stools by a table more suited for a kindergarten class, in the middle of a cool and surprisingly neat alleyway.
There were six dishes in front of us.
Boss Zeng Jiade of ErNiang Rabbit Head Restaurant presented us with two versions of his signature dish - one done in classic Sichuan mala style and the other stewed in five-spice sauce.
On each platter were about 10 little heads, each no bigger than a goose's head.
My camera went into overdrive on auto-focus (to save time before the heads get cold).
I didn't realise there was an etiquette to chomping on the heads until I witnessed how the elegant Nicole did it.
Wearing clear plastic gloves on her hands, she first tore a head apart from its jaws (the head had been stewed to such softness), gently ripped each jaw into two and nibbled on the fleshy cheeks and the tongue.
'Don't throw the halved jaw bones away; they serve a later purpose,' she said as she began to gnaw on the head and savour the brains peppered with mala sauce.
She made it look so natural to eat a rabbit's head.
Nicole then demonstrated how to use the halved jaw bone - complete with the bucked teeth - to scoop out the eyes and the soft flesh around it.
The heads were not gamey and had a soft stewed chicken texture and taste.
I sucked on the bones, which had absorbed the flavour of the sauces.
I had six heads. But that's only because I had to leave some for the other four guests!
Mr Zeng also brought out, in quick succession, outstanding stir-fried tomatoes and eggs done to perfection, mala frogs and slices of pork fat fried with dried chillies and Sichuan peppercorns with spring onions.
I thought, finally, I had the true taste of Sichuan cuisine!
The platter of glass kway teow 'fen pi' that was served was an addictive filler too.
It was perfect with the eight bottles of local beer that we washed it down with.
Yum, yum. And the $20 total bill? That was yum, yum too.
Rabbits are low fat, high protein and delicious.
I will have to find a good reliable source or even breed the rabbits myself. A fertile mother rabbit can produce 30 offspring a year. Rabbits can be butchered when they are about 2 kg in weight.
Who's game for rabbit?
By K F Seetoh, Food guru
WHENEVER someone asks me what is the strangest thing I've eaten - a question I cannot answer as I simply classify food as edible and inedible - I entertain him with my experiences with smoked donkey, shark's liver or snake skin hotpot.
Now, I've got another dish to add to the list.
The thing about travelling as a makan anthropologist in a place like Chengdu in Sichuan, China, is that minders and friends - despite knowing that I'll try even tree bark if it's simmered well - will point me to a prettified 'lao wai' (foreigners) local eatery.
At these places, the carefully crafted menu, English-speaking staff, slick uniforms, posh trimmings and annoyingly smooth service are a turn-off to me.
It's too well-packaged, like the Singapore Sling in a merlion mug.
WANTING MORE
Then, a Singaporean friend, who has been running an advertising agency in Chengdu for the last five years, hooked me up with Ms Nicole Xieyang.
Nicole owns a polished Euro-style cafe called Salome Cafe.
Named after the tragic opera by Richard Strauss about Princess Salome in Herod's kingdom, the cafe sells a chill-out dining experience with its comfy sofa seats, wireless Internet access and set meals to tickle the fancy of local office workers.
I was piqued by Nicole's mala (chilli sauce with Sichuan peppercorns) pasta.
But I was looking for more exotic stuff.
After introducing me to her refined pear, snow fungus and rose tea and her romantic predisposition to poetry and arts, Nicole finally read my thoughts.
'Let's do rabbit's head tomorrow,' she said.
'It's a very popular and traditional street Chengdu dish and it's sold only in street-side eateries.'
Now that's poetry which resonates with me.
After a quick zippity-doo through a few alleys and lanes near the airport, we were seated on small stools by a table more suited for a kindergarten class, in the middle of a cool and surprisingly neat alleyway.
There were six dishes in front of us.
Boss Zeng Jiade of ErNiang Rabbit Head Restaurant presented us with two versions of his signature dish - one done in classic Sichuan mala style and the other stewed in five-spice sauce.
On each platter were about 10 little heads, each no bigger than a goose's head.
My camera went into overdrive on auto-focus (to save time before the heads get cold).
I didn't realise there was an etiquette to chomping on the heads until I witnessed how the elegant Nicole did it.
Wearing clear plastic gloves on her hands, she first tore a head apart from its jaws (the head had been stewed to such softness), gently ripped each jaw into two and nibbled on the fleshy cheeks and the tongue.
'Don't throw the halved jaw bones away; they serve a later purpose,' she said as she began to gnaw on the head and savour the brains peppered with mala sauce.
She made it look so natural to eat a rabbit's head.
Nicole then demonstrated how to use the halved jaw bone - complete with the bucked teeth - to scoop out the eyes and the soft flesh around it.
The heads were not gamey and had a soft stewed chicken texture and taste.
I sucked on the bones, which had absorbed the flavour of the sauces.
I had six heads. But that's only because I had to leave some for the other four guests!
Mr Zeng also brought out, in quick succession, outstanding stir-fried tomatoes and eggs done to perfection, mala frogs and slices of pork fat fried with dried chillies and Sichuan peppercorns with spring onions.
I thought, finally, I had the true taste of Sichuan cuisine!
The platter of glass kway teow 'fen pi' that was served was an addictive filler too.
It was perfect with the eight bottles of local beer that we washed it down with.
Yum, yum. And the $20 total bill? That was yum, yum too.
