Conejo en Salmorejo Canario

Conejo en salmorejo is Canarian, especially at home in Tenerife: rabbit steeped in garlic, pimentón, island pepper, wine, vinegar and herbs, then fried and returned to that marinade until tender. Here salmorejo means a red adobo, a seasoned marinade. It has nothing to do with Córdoba's cold tomato-and-bread soup. No cold soup is hiding in this pan.

Rabbit carries little fat, so the overnight adobo is the step that decides the dish. The salt and sharp wine mixture season the meat before cooking, while the garlic, pepper and herbs build the sauce that will later cling to it. Drain the pieces well before frying. If you pour wet rabbit into the pan, it boils pale and the pimentón burns before the meat can brown.

Farmed rabbit is exactly right and cooks more evenly than wild. If rabbit cannot be found, use 1.5kg bone-in chicken thighs and cook them to 74°C; the result will be richer and milder, and it must be called pollo en salmorejo. A dried guindilla can stand in for the Canarian pimienta picona, though its heat is sharper and less fruity. No hace falta haber pisado España, you don't need to have set foot there.

The finished sauce should be red, glossy and sharp enough to wake the lean meat, but not so vinegary that it catches in your throat. Give it ten minutes to settle, then serve it with papas arrugadas, their wrinkled salty skins ready to drink the sauce. My Margin has the useful order written plainly: marinade first, browning second, sauce last. Follow that and it comes out.