Rabbit rissoles a tasty treat

Northland Regional Council expects to give away about 1500 free rabbit rissoles.


Rabbit rissoles with garlic and fennel will be the wild food treat used to lure visitors to the Northland Regional Council’s marquee at Kaipara’s upcoming Northland Field Days.In recent years the regional council has successfully used a variety of wild food treats – most made from pests – as a fun way of attracting visitors to the Dargaville event on March 3,4 and 5.

Council chairman Bill Shepherd says previous wild food treats have included possum burgers, pies and pate, wild pork and goat meat pies, wild rabbit sausages and even wasp larvae ice cream.

This year will again see another pest – the rabbit – turned into an appetising treat.

About 75 kilograms of rabbit meat has been sourced from an approved wild game supplier, which will turn it into roughly 1500 rissoles.

Cr Shepherd says they’ll be served on skewers with dipping sauce over the three days of the event at the council’s usual location, site 251 on ‘Fonterra Farm Source Road’.

“Our marquee will be themed around working together for the benefit of our shared Northland environment,” Cr Shepherd says.

“There’ll be a large number of interactive activities showing how to take action on a wide range of topics including pest plants and animals, land and lake management, kauri dieback disease and farm dairy effluent.”

The council will also be selling a range of pest traps for possums, rats and mustelids.