Have you ever made the Silver Palate 80′s classic, Chicken Marbella? It’s chicken cooked with prunes and olives. It’s amazing how the sweet prunes just melt into the chicken drippings. Prunes are an underutilized ingredient in my opinion. They’ve gotten such a bad rap that they aren’t even marketed as prunes anymore, but as dried plums, which is, in fact, what they are. Just dried plums. Like big fat raisins. Used in cooking, they can bring a deeply sweetly rich note to anything, especially meats. Rabbit cooked with prunes is a classic French dish, known there as “lapin aux pruneaux”. In this version we sear the rabbit pieces first in a little olive oil and butter, and then braise them in white wine with shallots, garlic, thyme, and prunes. Have you ever prepared rabbit? It’s a lot like chicken, both in the cooking and in the eating. In fact almost any recipe that can be made with chicken can be made with rabbit, and vice versa. The taste is just more subtle, and not “chicken-y”.

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