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Rabbit, with Jerusalem Artichokes
Skin, empty, and wash a plump young rabbit. Cut it into neat joints, lay these in a saucepan, and barely cover them with boiling stock or water. Let the liquor boil, draw the saucepan to the side, and let it simmer gently for twenty minutes. Put into the sauce two pounds of Jerusalem artichokes pared and sliced, and let all stew gently together till the rabbit is tender. Take out the artichokes, mash them, season with salt and cayenne, and add two table-spoonfuls of cream or milk. Beat them with a wooden spoon over the fire till they are quite hot. Lay the pieces of rabbit on a dish, pour the mashed artichokes over them, and serve very hot. Time, altogether, three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost of rabbit, 7d. to 9d. per pound. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A plain braise that finishes as one dish: the rabbit poached in stock, the artichokes cooked in the same liquor and then mashed into a sauce over the top. Two details in the original need translating.
- "Put into the sauce"There is no separate sauce. It means the cooking liquor already in the pan, which should be barely covering the joints so it concentrates rather than dilutes.
- Rabbit and timingThree-quarters of an hour total assumes a young wild rabbit. Farmed rabbit, which is what most butchers sell, is larger and blander and usually wants 50-60 minutes at a bare simmer; older wild rabbit can take well over an hour. Test the hind legs, which are done last.
- JointingNeat joints means two forelegs, two hind legs, and the saddle cut across into two or three pieces. The rib cage is mostly bone and is better in the stockpot than on the dish.
- Jerusalem artichokesTwo pounds is about 900 g unpeeled; expect to lose a quarter to peeling. Cut surfaces brown fast, so drop the slices into acidulated water if you pare them ahead. They collapse readily, which is what the recipe wants.
- MashingDrain them well before mashing or the puree will be soupy. It will never be as stiff as potato; the two tablespoons of cream are there for gloss and richness, not body, so resist adding more liquid.
- Reheating the puree"Beat them with a wooden spoon over the fire" means low heat and constant movement. Artichoke puree scorches quickly and takes on a bitter edge if it catches.
- SeasoningSalt and cayenne only, in the original. Jerusalem artichokes are sweet and want a firm hand with the salt; a scrape of nutmeg or lemon juice is within the spirit of the dish.
- A note on inulinJerusalem artichokes are high in inulin, which many people digest badly in quantity. Two pounds across four or five servings is on the generous side if this is unfamiliar territory for your guests.
- Cost and yieldThe 7d. to 9d. per pound is Victorian retail pricing and of historical interest only. Four to five servings is realistic if there is bread or a green vegetable alongside.
Rabbit was cheap protein in Victorian Britain, wild-caught and sold by weight, and Cassell's gives it dozens of entries precisely because it fed households that could not run to butcher's meat every day. The Jerusalem artichoke, Helianthus tuberosus, is neither an artichoke nor from Jerusalem: it is a North American sunflower tuber, and the name is generally traced to a corruption of the Italian girasole, sunflower. It reached English gardens in the early seventeenth century and by the nineteenth was a reliable winter root, prized for growing almost anywhere and disliked by some for exactly that reason. Pairing it with rabbit is thrifty cooking of a familiar kind: one pot, one liquid, and the vegetable doing double duty as sauce so nothing is thrown away.