Stracci Pasta with Braised Rabbit Sauce and Chestnuts

Name: Stracci Pasta with Braised Rabbit Sauce and Chestnuts (Stracci di Pasta con Ragù di Coniglio e Castagne)
Yield: Serves 4 as a first course
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 6 chestnuts; salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper, to taste; ¼ bunch thyme, leaves picked; 3 cloves garlic, roughly sliced; ¼ cup (60 ml) extra virgin olive oil; 4 canned peeled tomatoes, squashed; tipo 00 flour, for dusting; ½ quantity Fresh Pasta Dough #1, passed through pasta machine four times; 500 g rock salt; 3 golden shallots, roughly chopped; ⅓ cup (80 ml) Vermentino or other dry white wine; 2 cups (500 ml) Chicken Stock; 1 stalk celery heart, roughly chopped; plain flour, for dusting; 1 × 800 g rabbit, skinned, gutted and head removed; fine sea salt, for pasta water; 100 g aged Pecorino Sardo, freshly grated; extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling; 25 g butter

Stracci di Pasta con Ragù di Coniglio e Castagne

Preparation info

Serves
4
as a first course

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

A Sardinian Cookbook

By Giovanni Pilu and Roberta Muir

Published 2012

About

Be careful when cutting rabbit, as the bones are fragile and can splinter, resulting in shards of bone in the sauce: use a sharp kitchen knife and cut by resting the blade on the bone and tapping the back of the knife with a kitchen mallet, or ask your butcher to section the rabbit for you. Chestnuts are traditionally foraged for in winter; in spring, I use new baby broad beans or peas instead. You really need a mouli to make this sauce properly. Stracci literally means ‘rags’, as this past