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Rabbit, Marinaded and Baked
Skin, empty, and wash a fine rabbit, and let it lie for three or four hours in a marinade composed of a glassful of port or claret, a glassful of vinegar, a sliced onion, twenty peppercorns, a bay-leaf, and three pounded cloves. Turn and baste it three or four times. Tie slices of fat bacon across its back, fill it or not with veal forcemeat, lay it in a deep earthen dish, and pour the marinade upon it. Lay some large pieces of dripping upon it, bake in a moderate oven until done enough, and baste three or four times with the marinade. Half an hour before it is done enough pour a quarter of a pint of new milk over it, and baste the rabbit with this. Place it on a hot dish, take out the skewers, squeeze a little lemon-juice over it, and garnish with slices of lemon. Time to bake, three-quarters of an hour to one hour. Probable cost of rabbit, 7d. to 9d. per pound. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A barded, marinaded roast rabbit of the kind English kitchens turned out routinely in the 1890s. The one thing to get right is the animal itself: farmed rabbit and wild rabbit behave completely differently in a moderate oven.
- Wild versus farmedCassell's says only "a fine rabbit," sold by the pound, and was probably thinking of a young one. A farmed rabbit of 2.5-3 lb will take the stated time and stay tender; an older wild one will be sinewy at an hour and wants slow, covered braising instead. If you cannot tell the age, cover the dish for the first half of the cooking.
- A glassfulA wineglass in Victorian cookery books is about 2 fl oz (¼ cup), though the term is loose and some writers mean up to 4 oz. Two ounces each of port and vinegar with a sliced onion is a sharp marinade for one rabbit; that is the intent.
- Moderate oven350F / 175C. Rabbit is very lean, so higher heat dries the saddle before the legs are done.
- Marinading timeThree or four hours on a cold larder shelf becomes three or four hours in the refrigerator, covered. Turn it as directed, since the meat sits only partly submerged.
- DrippingBeef dripping, the solidified fat from a roast. Butter or a mild lard will do the same job of keeping the exposed loin from drying, as will the bacon barding, which should be tied over the back and not merely laid on.
- Veal forcemeatThe standard forcemeat of the period: minced veal or veal and suet with breadcrumbs, lemon zest, herbs and egg to bind. Any pork-and-herb stuffing gives the same effect. Stuffed, the rabbit will need the longer end of the timing.
- The milk"New milk" is fresh whole milk. Poured over a marinade of wine and vinegar it will curdle, which is expected — the milk solids brown and enrich the pan liquid. Strain the juices before serving if you want a smooth sauce.
- Doneness"Until done enough" means the leg juices run clear and the thigh reads about 160F / 71C. Rabbit is not served pink.
- YieldFour to five as the book says, if the rabbit is stuffed and there are potatoes alongside. A single farmed rabbit unstuffed realistically serves three.
Rabbit was cheap protein in late-Victorian Britain — the 7d. to 9d. a pound quoted here puts it near the price of the cheaper cuts of beef and mutton — and Cassell's carries a long run of rabbit recipes. Marinading in wine, vinegar and spice before roasting is a technique inherited from French practice for hare and older game, where the acid was credited with tenderising and with softening the strong flavour of a mature animal; whether it does much tenderising is doubtful, but it does season deeply. Barding with fat bacon and finishing with milk are both answers to the same problem, that rabbit has almost no intramuscular fat and will turn to string in a dry oven. The garnish of lemon slices marks it as a dish for the dining table rather than the kitchen.