"I never prepare it with beer, like the recipe normally goes, mine is with treacle."
"I learned it from my cousin Eugenie, who went out hunting a lot. That was in the fifties of last century." My grandmother told me this, while we were standing in her kitchen and prepared rabbit with plums. Finally, after six months, my grandmother and I looked for some time to prepare their favourite dish.
This morning, at 10 o'clock I walked into the kitchen of my mother's mother, a 79 year old woman who is known as a sweet busybody, where she already was preparing the rabbit legs. It was nice, cooking together with her, while talking about her and mine family background. "And what about your parents?" I asked. "What where they like? What was the name of my great grandfather again?" She thought about it for a while and then became restless. "I don't know anymore." she confessed timidly. "That is what is happening when you become older, you start to forget." She walked to the cabinet in the dining room where the pictures of her parents are standing on. "Come on father", she asked to the man at one of the pictures, "what's your name again?" The picture kept silent and my grandmother started to search for some documents, so she could remember the name again. "Aha, here it is, his name was, of course", and she nodded her head, "Edmond."
Rabbit with plums
Ingredients for 3.
3 rabbit legs
some cut up bacon, lets say 200 g
1 coarsely diced onion
20 dried plums
some good butter
little bit of vinegar
a spoon of treacle
pepper & salt
Instructions.
In large pot or Dutch oven, heat the butter. First brown the bacon & onion.Add the rabbit legs; sauté until tender. Put some salt & pepper on it and pour some water in the pot. Keep warm for about two or three hours. Add plums & syrup. Sprinkle some vinegar on the meat. Cover & simmer 45 minutes. You can serve applesauce and fried potatoes with it.
In the afternoon I went to the other grandparents house where Helgard, the second wife of my grandfather also taught me a recipe of hers. You know the expression: "it's a piece of cake!" meaning that's easy... . Well, this cake recipe is as easy as that... Although when Helgard makes it, it is much more delicious and light than when I made it. This proves: skills are an important factor in preparing dishes: experience makes the master. And she is a true master in sweet dishes. At every visit, there will be some delicious cake or biscuits on the table. And you're not allowed to leave it before you've been eating at least 3 pieces.
4/4 cake
Ingredients.
250 g flour
250 g sugar
250 g butter
4 eggs
1 little bag of backing powder
1 little bag of vanilla sugar
Instructions. Beat the butter, sugar, egg yolks, backing powder and vanilla sugar till a homogeneous light mixture. Sift the flour and slowly add to the batter, stirring constantly. In a separate bowl: beat the egg white until very stiff. Preheat the oven on 170 C. With a spatula, slowly and carefully add the egg white to the batter. Grease a mould with butter and dust some flour over it. (Our mould is 21cm diameter round) Fill the mould with the batter until 3/4th filled. Bake on 170 C for one hour, or: stop baking when you put a knitting needle in the cake and nothing sticks on it. After baking: remove immediately out of the mould and cool the cake on a tray.