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RABBIT PIE, PLAIN (another way)
Prepare the rabbit as before, cut it into neat joints, and lay these in water for an hour, dry them well, and season each one with salt and pepper. Cut three-quarters of a pound of bacon into neat squares. Lay the inferior joints of the rabbit at the bottom of a deep dish, put upon them two or three pieces of bacon, and three parts fill the dish with alternate layers of rabbit and bacon. Dredge a little flour, and sprinkle a little chopped parsley and a little minced shallot lightly over each layer, and put two bay-leaves on the top. Pour in half a pint of stock or water, cover the pie with pastry in the usual way, brush over with egg, make a hole in the top, and bake in a well-heated oven. Turn it about, that it may bake equally, and, to keep it from burning, place upon it, if necessary, a piece of paper. When done enough, pour into it one or two spoonfuls of nicely-flavoured gravy, and serve hot or cold. Time to bake, an hour and a half. Probable cost, 2s. 6d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A straightforward raised-crust meat pie that depends on two things the original assumes you know: rabbit is almost fatless, and Victorian ovens ran hot and unevenly. Get the bacon and the added gravy right and the rest follows.
- The hinge: gravy after bakingHalf a pint of stock in a deep dish will largely cook away, and rabbit gives up almost no fat to make up the difference. The spoonfuls of hot, well-seasoned gravy poured through the vent hole when the pie comes out are not a garnish; without them the filling is dry.
- Oven temperatureThe book gives no figures; a "well-heated oven" is usually read as somewhere around 425F. Give it 20 minutes at that heat to set and colour the pastry, then drop to 350F for the remaining time. The sheet of paper laid on top does the job of a foil shield, and "turn it about" was for wood- and coal-fired ovens with hot spots; a modern oven needs one turn at most.
- Half a pintAn imperial half pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups. Use stock rather than water; rabbit stock or chicken stock both work.
- The rabbitA farmed rabbit of 2 1/2 to 3 lb jointed will fill a deep dish and is tender in the stated hour and a half. Wild rabbit, which was widely eaten at the time and may well be what is intended here, is leaner and much tougher, and older animals will still be sinewy at that point; joints from a wild rabbit are better braised until nearly tender before they go into the dish.
- "Inferior joints"The ribcage, neck, forelegs and flaps, which carry less meat. They line the bottom because they sit in the liquid; the two hind legs and the saddle go on top.
- Soaking the jointsThe hour in water is usually explained as drawing out blood from a freshly killed animal, though the recipe does not say. Butchered or packaged rabbit does not need it, and a long soak leaches flavour. Dry the joints thoroughly whatever you do, so the flour dredge sticks.
- Bacon and saltThree-quarters of a pound is the fat source for the whole pie, so keep the quantity. Modern bacon is wetter, leaner and often heavily smoked; unsmoked streaky bacon or pancetta cut into squares is closer to the original. Season the rabbit lightly, since the bacon and the gravy both bring salt.
- Pastry and vent"In the usual way" means shortcrust or a rough puff lid, egg-washed. The hole in the top lets steam escape so the lid does not lift off the filling; leave it open, and pour the gravy in through it at the end.
- YieldFive or six as the book says, with the caveat that jointed rabbit carries a good deal of bone. Serve hot with potatoes, or let it go cold, when the reduced stock and bacon set to a light jelly.
Rabbit pie of this plain sort was everyday food in nineteenth-century Britain rather than game-book cooking: wild rabbit was abundant and cheap, and in many districts obtainable outside the butcher's shop altogether, which is part of why Cassell's can quote the whole dish at 2s 6d for five or six people. The recipe's construction answers the animal's chief drawback. Rabbit is very lean, so three-quarters of a pound of bacon is doing the work that fat and suet do in a beef pie, and the flour dredged over each layer thickens the little stock into gravy as it cooks. The instruction to "serve hot or cold" points to the pie's usefulness as food that travelled well; shallot, parsley and bay are a common English pie seasoning of the period, and the label "plain" presumably distinguishes it from richer versions built with forcemeat balls, hard-boiled egg or a veal stock.