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RABBIT, BAKED (another way)
Take a plump young rabbit. Skin, empty, and wash it, line the inside with slices of fat bacon, and fill it with good veal forcemeat. Sew it up, and truss it firmly, with the fore legs skewered backward, the back legs forward, and the head in an upright position. Lay a slice of fat bacon over the back, and put the rabbit in a deep dripping-tin, then lay three or four lumps of butter or dripping upon it, and place it in a moderate oven. When it is almost done enough, dredge a little flour over it, baste it again, and set it in the oven to brown. Lift it upon a hot dish, remove the skewers, pour a spoonful or two of good brown gravy over it, and send some more to table in a tureen. Garnish the dish with slices of fat bacon. If liked, red-currant jelly may accompany the baked rabbit. Time to bake, from three-quarters of an hour to one hour; less if the rabbit is small. Probable cost of rabbit, 7d. to 9d. per pound. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A straightforward barded-and-stuffed roast that depends entirely on keeping a very lean animal from drying out. Most of the work is in the trussing and the fat.
- Oven temperatureA "moderate oven" is usually taken as somewhere around 325-350F/165-175C. For the browning after the flour dredge, a spell at around 425F/220C for the last eight to ten minutes will do it.
- The hinge: fat, and plenty of itRabbit is very lean, farmed rabbit only around 5 to 6 per cent fat, and it dries out at the least provocation. The bacon lining, the barding slice over the back and the lumps of dripping are not garnish, they are the method. Do not reduce them, and baste regularly.
- Buying the rabbitA "plump young rabbit" means a fryer of roughly 2.5 to 3 lb, sold skinned and drawn. It will arrive headless, so ignore the instruction about the head upright; skewer the forelegs back and the hind legs forward and tie the body with butcher's twine at two or three points.
- Veal forcemeatPeriod veal forcemeat is minced veal or veal suet with breadcrumbs, chopped bacon or ham, lemon zest, parsley, thyme, mace and egg to bind. Ground veal is a special order in many places; ground pork shoulder makes an honest substitute and is fattier, which helps.
- DonenessRabbit thigh should read 160-165F/71-74C, and stuffing containing raw meat and egg must reach 165F/74C. With a full forcemeat load, a 3 lb rabbit usually needs closer to 75-90 minutes, longer than the book allows; check the stuffing as well as the leg.
- Dripping-tinA deep dripping-tin is simply a roasting pan with sides tall enough to hold the fat. A rack is not wanted here, as the rabbit should sit in the drippings for basting.
- Gravy"Good brown gravy" means a stock-based sauce made separately, not pan juices thickened at the last minute. Deglazing the tin with a little stock and Madeira and reducing gives much the same effect.
- YieldFive or six is generous by modern portioning. A 3 lb rabbit with a full forcemeat feeds four comfortably.
Rabbit was cheap protein in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, which is why Cassell's gives the price by the pound and offers several treatments of it. Wild rabbits from warrens, and from about the 1890s imported frozen carcasses from Australia, helped keep it affordable, though at the price quoted here it was not dramatically cheaper than beef. The trussing described here, with the head propped upright and the legs skewered fore and aft, is documented in Victorian cookery books; it disappeared once rabbit stopped arriving with its head on. The red-currant jelly is a borrowing from game service, where the sharp-sweet jelly is set against venison and hare, and it points to rabbit's ambiguous position in the period, half game and half poultry substitute.