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Rabbit, with Curry
Take two or three rabbits, and cut into pieces the hind-legs, back, and loins. Put these in a stewpan with butter and six ounces of streaky bacon in large dice. Fry over a moderate fire, but do not let the contents of the pan take too much colour; salt, sprinkle with flour, and curry powder. Fry the pieces of rabbit for a few seconds longer, take off the fire, and moisten with stock, put the stewpan again on the fire, and stir the liquid till it is boiling. In five minutes remove the stewpan to a moderate fire to finish cooking the rabbits. Ten minutes before serving, lay the pieces of rabbit in another stewpan, and pour the sauce over; then add to the stew two large onions cut into dice, seasoned and coloured with butter in a frying-pan. Just before serving, thicken the sauce with two yolks of eggs diluted with cream; cook the liaison without permitting the sauce to boil, then send the meat to table, with some rice, boiled Indian fashion, in a separate dish.
A French-technique stew wearing an Anglo-Indian hat: the curry powder is treated exactly as flour in a fricassee, and the dish is finished with an egg-and-cream liaison. Most of what needs translating is method rather than ingredients.
- The liaison is the hingeOnce the yolks and cream go in, the sauce must not boil or it will scramble into grains. Keep it below about 180F, stirring, until it coats the spoon, then serve straight away.
- Quantities of curry powderNone is given, which is normal for the period. For two or three rabbits, 2 to 3 tablespoons of a mild curry powder is in scale; a hot modern blend will overwhelm the cream finish, so taste as you go.
- Which joints, and what to do with the restOnly the hind legs, back and loins are used. The forelegs, ribcage and neck are worth simmering into the stock that moistens the stew rather than discarding.
- Rabbit and cooking timeFarmed rabbit is tender and needs roughly 30 to 40 minutes at a bare simmer; the loin pieces are done sooner than the legs and can be lifted out. Wild rabbit, which may well be what was intended, can want an hour or more and is best cooked until the meat loosens from the bone.
- "Moderate fire" and "stewpan"A stewpan is a wide, heavy, lidded saucepan, not a baking dish. The whole dish is stovetop: a moderate fire is a low burner holding a lazy simmer, never a rolling boil.
- Sprinkling with flourThe flour and curry are dusted onto the frying meat and fried a few seconds more so the raw taste cooks out. Add the stock off the heat and stir it smooth before it goes back on, exactly as written, or the sauce will lump.
- Rice "boiled Indian fashion"Long-grain rice boiled in plenty of salted water and drained, so the grains stay separate and dry rather than being absorption-cooked into a mass. Basmati suits the dish.
- YieldTwo to three rabbits, using only the hind legs, backs and loins as directed, will serve about four to six.
Cassell's belongs to the generation of English cookery books in which curry had become thoroughly domesticated: commercial curry powder was sold ready-blended by grocers, and cooks could use it as a seasoning within an otherwise French repertoire rather than as the basis of an Indian dish. That is precisely what happens here, where the powder is dredged on with the flour in the manner of a fricassee and the stew is finished with a liaison of yolks and cream, a technique with no place in Indian cooking. Rabbit was a natural meat for such a dish in Victorian Britain: cheap, widely available wild or from the warren, and mild enough to carry a strong seasoning. The instruction to serve rice "boiled Indian fashion" in a separate dish distinguishes dry, separate grains from rice cooked soft.