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Rabbit Pie, Raised
Take the meat from a fine young rabbit, cut it into small neat pieces, and season nicely with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg. Cut half a pound of fat bacon into dice. Make a raised crust (see PASTE FOR RAISED PIES) and form the pie into any shape that may be wished, being careful that the sides are stiff and firm. Put in the pieces of meat and bacon, pack them tightly, and intersperse amongst them the yolks of three or four hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters lengthwise. Pour a little tomato sauce over all, or failing this a spoonful or two of good gravy, which will be a jelly when cold. Cover the pie with pastry, brush it over with egg, and ornament prettily. Bake in a mode-rate oven until it is done enough, that is until a skewer will pierce to the bottom of it easily. Serve either hot or cold. Time to bake, about an hour and a half. Probable cost, 3s. Sufficient for a breakfast or luncheon dish.
A hot-water-crust pie of the kind meant to be carried to a cold table, and the crust is the part that decides whether it works. Everything else is straightforward butchery and seasoning.
- The hinge: work the crust warmRaised (hot water) crust must be moulded while it is still warm and pliable and then allowed to set firm before filling; once it cools it cracks rather than stretches. If you are not confident of free-standing sides, line a springform tin or a 6-inch cake tin and raise the paste inside it.
- Moderate oven350F/175C. If the pastry is colouring before the ninety minutes are up, lay a sheet of foil loosely over the top rather than dropping the heat.
- DonenessThe skewer test tells you the meat is tender, not that it is safe. Rabbit is lean and dries out easily; take it to 165F/74C at the centre and no further.
- How much rabbitA "fine young rabbit" of 2 1/2 to 3 lb, boned out, gives roughly 1 to 1 1/4 lb of meat, which suits a pie of this size. Farmed rabbit is what you will find; it is milder and slightly fattier than wild.
- Fat baconUnsmoked streaky bacon or fatback, diced, not modern thin-cut smoked rashers. Its job is to baste the lean rabbit from inside, so half a pound to a pound of meat is not excessive.
- The jellyThe gravy sets on cooling only if it is genuinely gelatinous. Reduced stock made with rabbit or veal bones will jelly; a supermarket carton generally will not, so add a little softened leaf gelatine, or pour warm jellied stock through a hole in the lid after baking, as with pork pie.
- Yolks onlyThe recipe calls for the quartered yolks of three or four hard-boiled eggs, not whole eggs, though it gives no reason. Cooked whites can turn rubbery and shed water in a filling of this kind.
- ServingThe recipe says only that it is sufficient for a breakfast or luncheon dish, without giving a number of servings. If you mean to serve it cold, cool it completely and refrigerate overnight; slicing warm will collapse the filling before the jelly has set.
Raised pies are often said to belong to an older English tradition than the dish-baked pie: the stiff hot-water crust was originally a vessel as much as a food, strong enough to be carried, stored and served without a dish, which is why Cassell's tells the cook to form it "into any shape that may be wished" and to keep the sides firm. Rabbit was a cheap meat in a Victorian kitchen, and the pie's stated cost of three shillings for a breakfast or luncheon dish sits it squarely in ordinary middle-class housekeeping rather than at dinner, where a raised pie of game or pork would have been more ambitious. The hard-boiled yolks and the layer of setting gravy are both standard devices of the period, the first for colour when the pie is cut and the second to fill the gap left as the meat shrinks. The suggestion of tomato sauce as an alternative to gravy is a small mark of date: tinned and bottled tomato preparations seem to have been becoming a more usual store-cupboard item in British kitchens by the later nineteenth century.