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Rabbit, Matelote Of
Take a rabbit, cut it up, and fry it in a little butter. Make a roux, which should be thinned with weak soup and a glassful of white wine. When the liquid boils, put in the pieces of rabbit, together with a little bacon cut into dice, a bunch of mixed herbs, and some mushrooms. When nearly done enough, brown some button onions in butter, moistening with the sauce from the rabbit. Place the meat in the centre of the dish, arrange the onions and mushrooms round it, strain the sauce over, and serve. Probable cost of rabbit, 7d. to 9d. per pound.
A straightforward brown stew in the French manner, written for a cook who already knows how to make a roux and does not need to be told twice. The main decision the original leaves to you is the age of the rabbit, which changes the cooking time by an hour or more.
- Wild or farmed rabbitA farmed rabbit of about 2.5-3 lb, jointed into six or seven pieces, will be tender in 35-45 minutes at a bare simmer. A wild rabbit needs 1.5 to 2 hours; the original does not say which is meant. A wild one is better cooked covered in a low (325F) oven than on the burner, where the thin loin dries out.
- The rouxEqual weights butter and flour, about 1.5 oz of each, cooked to a light hazelnut colour before any liquid goes in. Stopping at blond gives a pale, floury sauce; taking it to dark chocolate will thin it out. Add the liquid off the heat and whisk smooth before returning it.
- "Weak soup"Unseasoned light stock, not consommé and not water. Chicken stock diluted by a third is close to what was meant; about 1.5 pints in total with the wine. A concentrated modern stock cube will make the finished sauce far too salty once the bacon has gone in.
- A glassful of white wineRoughly 2 to 2.5 fl oz by the usual period reckoning of a wineglassful. Something dry and unoaked. It goes in with the stock rather than being reduced first, which keeps the sauce slightly sharp against the bacon fat.
- Bacon cut into diceUnsmoked streaky bacon or salt pork, cut into lardons about the size of a thumbnail. Heavily smoked supermarket bacon will dominate the dish. Blanch it for two minutes if it tastes very salty.
- Button onionsSmall pickling onions or shallots, peeled whole, browned in butter and then finished separately in a ladleful of the rabbit sauce so they hold their shape. Cooking them with the rabbit from the start collapses them into the gravy.
- Bunch of mixed herbsA bouquet garni: parsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf tied together so it lifts out cleanly before the sauce is strained.
- Straining the sauceThe instruction to strain is the point of the plating. The herbs and any fat come out, the sauce goes over the meat glossy, and the mushrooms and onions sit round the edge rather than being lost in it.
- YieldOne rabbit of this size serves three, or four with potatoes or plain boiled rice to take the sauce.
A matelote takes its name from the French matelot, sailor, and properly describes a stew of freshwater fish — eel, carp, pike — cooked in wine with onions, mushrooms and lardons. By the later nineteenth century the word had loosened to mean the treatment rather than the fish, so cookery dictionaries like Cassell's could offer a matelote of rabbit or of chicken, built on the same wine-and-roux base with the same garnish of button onions and mushrooms. Rabbit was the obvious candidate: cheap, plentiful, and quoted here at 7d. to 9d. a pound, and wild rabbit's firm, slightly dry flesh takes a long moist braise better than it takes roasting. The recipe is really a template — learn the roux, the wine, and the separately finished garnish, and the protein becomes almost incidental.