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Rabbit, Fricandeau Of
Take the fleshy portion of a large fat rabbit--that is, the hind-quarters and the loins cut off close to the shoulder-blades. Lard the flesh evenly and closely, and lay it in a deep baking-dish. Pour upon it as much nicely-flavoured stock as will cover it, fasten a piece of buttered paper over the dish, and bake the rabbit in a moderate oven until it is quite tender, being careful to baste it frequently, and to add a little more stock if required. Lift the rabbit out of the gravy, and keep it hot. Boil quickly till it begins to thicken the liquor in which the meat was baked. Have ready a tea-cupful of rich tomato sauce. Spread this on a hot dish. Lay the rabbit upon it, pass a red-hot shovel over the larding, to make it crisp, and pour the gravy over all. Serve very hot. Time to bake the fricandeau, two hours. Probable cost, 3s. 6d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A braise dressed up as a roast: the rabbit cooks submerged in stock under buttered paper, then gets a blast of dry heat at the last moment to crisp the larding. Two things carry the dish — the lardons and the final browning — and both are easy to skip and shouldn't be.
- The hinge: crisp the lardingThe "red-hot shovel" is a domestic stand-in for a salamander, held just above the surface to brown the exposed pork fat without cooking the meat further. Use the broiler at full heat, rack high, for a minute or two, watching constantly. Without it the lardons stay pale and flabby and the dish reads as boiled.
- LardingA larding needle threads strips of firm back fat or fatty salt pork through the surface of the meat. Rabbit is very lean, so this is functional, not decorative. If you have no needle, bard instead — sheet the saddle and legs in thin fat or pancetta and tie it on, accepting that you lose the crisped studding.
- Moderate oven350F/175C. The dish is covered with buttered paper, so it is a braise rather than a roast; parchment or a loose foil lid does the same job.
- Two hours is for a big old rabbitA "large fat rabbit" suggests a mature animal, possibly wild. A farmed rabbit of 2 1/2 to 3 lb, covered in stock at 350F, is likely tender in about an hour to an hour and a quarter. Test the thickest part of the hind leg; overcooked rabbit shreds into dry threads rather than staying sliceable.
- Which cutsThe hind quarters and saddle, taken off just behind the shoulder blades. Keep the forelegs and ribs for the stock — they are what should be flavouring the braising liquid in the first place.
- A tea-cupfulRoughly 5 to 6 fl oz, so about two-thirds of a US cup of tomato sauce, spread as a bed on the serving dish rather than stirred into the gravy.
- Reducing the gravy"Boil quickly till it begins to thicken" means reduce until it coats a spoon; a rabbit braise is short on gelatine, so a well-made stock is what gives it body. If it stays thin, mount it with a little butter rather than adding flour at this stage.
- Yield and costFour to five as written. The 3s 6d is a Victorian costing for the ingredients and is of historical interest only.
A fricandeau is properly a larded cushion of veal, braised in stock and glazed — one of the set pieces of French cookery that English kitchens adopted wholesale in the nineteenth century. Applying the treatment to rabbit is the sort of substitution Cassell's makes constantly: the technique is the point, and a cheap lean meat that benefits from larding and slow moist heat stands in for an expensive one. Rabbit was thoroughly ordinary food in Victorian Britain, wild and warren-raised alike, and the dictionary carries a number of preparations for it. The red-hot shovel passed over the surface is a reminder of what a coal-range kitchen was likely to have had to hand: no overhead grill, but commonly a flat iron implement and a fire hot enough to bring it to colour.