SETH: What are we making today?

JOHANNA: I'm making coniglio.

Do you know what that is?

SETH: I'm a little worried to find out.

JOHANNA: So we're actually going to be butchering some rabbit and making a traditional style of Ligurian stew with a little twist of mine.

SETH: All right, well, I guess this is kind of the other, other white meat.

JOHANNA: Listen, I know rabbit can seem daunting.

Everybody thinks of the cute part of what they think of with rabbits, but... SETH: Little bunny foo foo.

JOHANNA: I didn't want to say it, but what you've got here is a very sustainable source of protein, as well as something that's very lean, very tender.

We're going to start over here.

SETH: With the good sharp knives, obviously.

JOHANNA: Very good, sharp knife.

Everything should come off pretty easily.

We work with a couple of local farms that have wild free-range rabbits.

SETH: This is some real butchery we're doing here today.

JOHANNA: This is some real butchery.

There are a couple of... SETH: Hey, this is where food comes from.

JOHANNA: Butchery makes you appreciate the quality of the ingredients and also appreciate the animal and its life and everything that it gave to be able to nourish and nurture other people.

So you've got essentially your dark meat and that is what I'm cutting off right now, which are your legs and thighs.

And then you get the tenderloin part of it, which is essentially like having your chicken breast.

And then the remaining part of the carcass is actually going to be made into a stock that we use in the stew.

SETH: So nothing goes to waste here.

JOHANNA: Nothing goes to waste.

SETH: I love that.

JOHANNA: Yeah.

SETH: All right, well how does this rabbit become a stew?

JOHANNA: Well, let me show you.

All right, so this is where we're going to actually be braising the rabbit.

SETH: Ooh, okay.

JOHANNA: And I'm going to put the white meat with the white meat and the dark meat with the dark meat.

SETH: We already have quite a few rabbits that have been butchered.

JOHANNA: Yes, we're ready.

And then the carcass is actually going to go into the stock.

I'm going to put in some extra virgin olive oil from Liguria and we are going to start searing off our dark meat.

So at Ama, we don't believe in using any industrial seed oils and it was really important to me not to have an actual fryer.

This machine allows me to sear, braise, and shallow fry, which means that I'm only using really good oils or tallow or clarified butter.

It means that everything we're doing in here stays as fresh as possible.

What I think is really important for a home cook is they have to salt along the way.

Then we use Celtic sea salt.

I want to get as much color as possible on the meat.

My God, I'm getting steamed.

This is what we're looking for, just a little bit of color.

It helps bring out the flavors.

And then I'm going to start taking everything out.

So now we're going to get the white meat with a nice quick sear so it has some beautiful color on it.

And then it's really important to get it out.

The white meat is kind of similar to a chicken breast.

If you overcook it, it gets a little dry.

So now I'm going to add a little bit more olive oil.

And then we actually add in some beautiful anchovies.

SETH: Oh, man.

You must've known that I just love anchovies.

JOHANNA: I had a little inclination.

These anchovies are really, really special.

They're from Nettuno from the south.

And I really wanted to figure out how do I take some of my favorite flavors and put it in this dish.

This isn't necessarily the most traditional way that my grandmother or my mother would prepare rabbit, but I felt like these flavors really do complement what Liguria is all about.

SETH: And I love how the anchovies are just melting away.

JOHANNA: Exactly.

And then we use a lot of produce from Lancaster Farm Cooperative.

And so these are sweet onions coming together with some anchovies.

SETH: I could just stand here all day long getting some of those aromas.

JOHANNA: What we're looking for here is a softening of these onions and now we're actually going to add the fennel.

When I deglaze, I'm going to deglaze with some Sambuca.

SETH: Ooh.

JOHANNA: It has a little bit of a sweetness to it.

It just brings out the flavor of the fennel.

I'm going to turn up the heat just a little bit.

SETH: And all that beautiful brown caramelized bits, those are all coming up now and joining our stew party.

JOHANNA: Everything is coming together.

Right now, we're going to focus on braising the dark meat, just mixing everything together.

So now I'm going to add these beautiful tomatoes.

Now these are the olives.

SETH: Don't love olives as much as anchovies, but I know they're going to be delicious in this dish.

JOHANNA: It somehow brings it together.

I've tried this dish without olives, it's just not as good.

All right, so we strained some rabbit stock.

I'm just going to put enough stock in to cover.

So the next step... to be able to cover this up and let it braise.

So, Seth, this is now going to braise for about an hour or so until the dark meat is tender.

Then we'll add in the white meat.

After we ladle it into the plate, we put a little bit of fresh chervil and some toasted ancient grain sourdough that we make in-house.

And then the coniglio will be ready.

SETH: All right, chef, I am game to try this dish.

JOHANNA: Had to throw that one in there.

SETH: Had to get that in there.

What are we drinking with it?

JOHANNA: I actually wanted to bring you this martini.

In Liguria, whenever somebody's house has extra olive branches, people will burn them and it has this amazing scent.

So my husband and I we're like, "How do we capture that into a martini?"

So we make this a dirty martini and then we smoke it with olive branches to get that.

SETH: Oh, there we go.

So this is perfuming the air here in the Navy Yard, just as it does back home in Liguria.

All right, well cheers to that, chef.

JOHANNA: Cheers.

SETH: Unique, flavorful, and very, very smoky.

I like that.

All right, well it's rabbit time now.

JOHANNA: Coniglio time.

SETH: Coniglio.

JOHANNA: Very excited for you to try it.

So use your spoon, try a little bit of the broth, but, yeah, dive in.

SETH: Mmm.

JOHANNA: The flavor is a little sweet, a little salty, has all these really nice notes to it.

But you can see the meat just falls right off the bone.

SETH: Oh, it certainly does.

That is outstanding.

JOHANNA: Thank you.

The bread is, in Italy, you always have a little bread for Scarpetta.

So there is a little bit of our ancient grain sourdough, so you can just use that to enjoy the sauce.

SETH: Do you have a lot of rabbit-skeptical folks who you've converted with this dish?

JOHANNA: Yes.

And they're like, "I don't know about this, but I'm in the mood for stew."

And we're like, "Just give it a try."

And I think 10 out of 10, we've never had somebody send back the dish.