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Rabbit, Stuffed and Stewed
Fill a rabbit with good veal forcemeat, tie three or four rashers of fat bacon over it, truss it firmly, put it down to a clear fire, and baste till it is lightly browned. Take it up, put it in a stewpan, pour the contents of the drippingtin over it, add as much new milk as will cover it, and a little pepper and salt if required. Cover the saucepan closely, and let the rabbit simmer very gently until it is done enough. Put it on a hot dish, garnish with sliced lemon, pour over it a little of the sauce in which it was stewed, and send the rest to table in a tureen. Time, three-quarters of an hour to one hour. Probable cost of rabbit, 7d. to 9d. per pound. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A two-stage braise: brown the stuffed rabbit at a fire, then finish it slowly in milk. The method survives well, but the open-fire browning and the milk both need handling.
- The hinge: keep the milk below a simmerMilk held at a rolling boil will break into curds and a greasy pool. Keep the pan at the barest tremble, lid on, or transfer the whole thing to a 300F oven where the heat is gentler and more even.
- "Put it down to a clear fire"A clear fire is one burnt down past flame to steady red coals. Sear the trussed rabbit in a heavy pan in a little fat, or roast it uncovered at 425F for 12-15 minutes, basting once or twice, until it takes colour.
- The dripping-tinThat is the pan set under the roast to catch fat and juices. If you are searing on the stovetop, deglaze the pan and pour that in instead; it is the same brown flavour the recipe is after.
- Veal forcemeatA period stuffing of minced veal, suet or bacon fat, breadcrumbs, lemon zest, herbs and egg to bind. Sausagemeat with breadcrumbs, thyme and lemon is the usual modern stand-in; allow roughly 8 oz for a rabbit.
- New milkMilk fresh from the cow, unskimmed, as opposed to skimmed or stale milk. Use whole milk; low-fat milk splits more readily under heat.
- Timing depends on the animalThree-quarters of an hour to an hour suits a young farmed rabbit of about 3 lb. A wild rabbit, particularly an older one, wants 1.5 to 2 hours of very slow cooking before the leg meat loosens from the bone.
- Trussing and the baconSew or skewer the belly shut over the forcemeat and tie the legs close to the body, or the stuffing works out in the liquid. The bacon rashers over the back are there because rabbit carries almost no fat of its own.
- The sauceThe braising milk comes out thin and pale. Reduce it, or whisk in a little beurre manié, and check the seasoning; lemon slices as garnish are doing real work against the richness.
- Yield and costFour to five people, as stated. The probable cost is given as 7d to 9d per pound. Rabbit occupies a great many pages of Victorian cookery books.
Rabbit was the everyday meat of Victorian Britain: cheap, plentiful, and treated in cookbooks with the same range of methods given to chicken. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery devotes column after column to it, and this version belongs to a family of dishes in which a lean animal is stuffed to bulk it out, wrapped in bacon to supply the fat it lacks, and then cooked in milk. Milk braising is an old kitchen answer to lean meat and to game with a strong flavour, and it is generally said to tenderise as well, though what it really does is provide a mild, faintly sweet cooking medium that keeps the flesh moist. The two-stage treatment here, browning at the fire and finishing in a covered stewpan, is a compromise between two kinds of heat, each used for what it did best.