Strain the liquor through a very fine sieve into a lidded pottery or porcelain dish. Now, using your fingers, remove every single scrap of meat from the bones – including the finer filaments of flesh between the ribs – and bury into the liquor. Place into the oven and cook for two hours.Discard the paper, remove the pancetta from the oily surface of the stew and put on a plate – this has only been used to provide its fat and to add flavour Also remove the kidneys and liver. You can eat the bacon in a sandwich; the offal is for the cats.

Carefully lift out the rabbit pieces, flicking off any stray bits of veg and herb, and put on to a plate to cool. This should be a little larger than the dimensions of the pot, with scissor snips around the edge so that it fits snugly (in chef-speak, this is called a cartouche, and a jolly useful trick it is for keeping things moist and juicy). Chop the ribcage in half along its spine using a cleaver or big knife – or get your butcher to do this. Also, if you still have the remaining part of the rabbit, cut off the belly flaps from the saddle. Put all these into a stout cast-iron pot that has a lid (a Le Creuset is ideal) Add all the remaining ingredients, apart from the pancetta. Mix together with your hands so that everything is well moistened. Lay the slices of pancetta, overlapping, on the surface.Put on to a gentle flame and bring up to a simmer.

Cook quietly for 10 minutes or so to get the heat up, switch off, then lay a piece of greaseproof paper on top. If you cannot find a French rabbit, there are now some fairly respectable British breeders who are beginning to see the light, but just make sure it is a nice plump creature.Rabbit salad, serves 3-4Note: this recipe will keep in the fridge for at least five days, well covered, so you could do the rabbit with mustard (see below) for Monday dinner and have the salad at the weekend.for the shredded rabbitthe ribcage, the two shoulders of the rabbit and the belly flaps from the saddle; about 500g, bones and all200ml white wine100ml water75ml olive oil1 small onion, peeled and quartered6 cloves of garlic, peeled and bruised6-7 sage leavesa little salt, peppera sprinkle of fennel seeds3 cloves2 bay leaves2 pieces of pithless lemonrindthe liver and kidneys of the rabbit75g thinly sliced pancetta or streaky bacon (unsmoked)Pre-heat the oven to lowest setting (125C or alternative) Remove the shoulders from the ribcage with a sharp knife. It is the smoothest of brief stews, irresistibly flavoured in that classical fashion where white meat meets cream and alcohol.Conveniently, one of these rabbits will be large enough for both of the recipes I am providing today: the shoulders and ribcage for the salad; the legs and saddle for the mustard thing. Naturally, you would not wish to start lunch with rabbit and continue with rabbit, but I want to illustrate just how far one of the fat creatures will go.

But the preparation that really gets my olfactory juices running, is the dish where rabbit is done with white wine, mustard and cream. The crust that forms (with the help of a little melted butter) blisters and sets in the most satisfactory way, encasing the flesh almost as pastry; ground mustard seed, after all, is almost a flour.Anyway, that, fundamentally, is plain rabbit and mustard. In its simplest form, a whole rabbit is slathered from head to tail with best Dijon and slammed into a hot oven to roast until done. As usual, it is down to the French to produce the finest rabbits for the table These are large, fatty, pink-fleshed and surprisingly huge. And in all the bouchers, hypermarches, Casinos and Codecs that I have visited in France over the years, there have always, but always, been whole rabbits for sale.Rabbit and mustard is, undoubtedly, the finest – and most common – way to marry Cottontail with condiment. Ah, happy memories.Tame rabbits, bred exclusively for the table, are a different matter entirely (in my mother’s day, the only domestic Flopsies you could find were bits of Chinese rabbit: frozen, meanly muscled and tasteless).