Wild Kent Rabbit in Japanese Sake

And Scallops in Matcha with Elderflower, Lemon & Shrimp

I’ve been travelling a long while with work in China and Japan. There’s so much to unpack and I don’t know where to begin to process it all. So, while my head catches up with a very full heart, I have turned to where I feel most at home: along the river path and in my kitchen.

What has mostly been on my mind as I reacquaint myself with home, is observing intersections. That the water contains the sky, the trees, the clouds. Where the elderflower grows in tangles with bolting cleavers. How I can take something entirely Kentish, and marry it with something entirely Japanese.

That’s how this dish happened, anyway. A wild Kent rabbit from the market butchery, brined for a couple of hours to draw away some of the strong flavour, and then cooked ever so slowly in sake that was gifted to me by a kind man in Shizuoka after dinner one evening. It was served over haricot beans with plenty of fresh, flowering thyme and shared with Alun alongside a bottle of good rosé.

Everything became so green while I was away, which was the inspiration for the next dish…

Rye scallops seared in butter with a Matcha sauce, tiny, crispy dried shrimps from a few moments to spare in an Osaka market, plenty of lemon zest and a smattering of elderflower, eaten while standing up in the kitchen and singing loudly between mouthfuls.

Sorry, just a short one today. In the meantime, guess which picture below is Kent, and which one is Japan.