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Rabbit
Put the back and the hind legs of one or two rabbits in an oven, covering the same first with a layer of butter (half inch thick) and then with a layer of French mustard, pepper and salt. Roast by a good fire for one hour, baste often with the juice from the meat and the gravy.
A one-line Belgian classic: rabbit under mustard and butter. The recipe assumes an open roasting fire and a cook standing over it, so the two things to fix are the heat source and the hour.
- The hinge: do not roast it for an hourFarmed rabbit is very lean and dries out fast. Saddle and hind legs at 375F need roughly 30-40 minutes, to an internal temperature of about 160F at the thickest part of the leg; the saddle is done sooner and can be lifted out first.
- "By a good fire"The recipe puts the meat in an oven, so this describes an oven driven hard by a well-made fire rather than an open hearth. In a modern oven, 375-400F is a workable equivalent.
- Half an inch of butterRead this as generous barding rather than a literal measurement. Two to three ounces of softened butter smeared over the pieces does the same job, and a couple of strips of bacon or fat pork laid over the saddle protects it better than butter alone.
- French mustardNot the bright yellow American kind. This is Dijon or a similar smooth, sharp mustard; spread it over the butter in a thin coat, since it will lose some of its bite in the heat.
- Wild versus farmedA wild rabbit is tougher and gamier and suits braising better than roasting. If you have one, cook it covered with a little stock and white beer rather than dry-roasting.
- Basting and gravy"The juice from the meat and the gravy" means the pan drippings. Rabbit throws off very little fat, so add a few spoonfuls of stock or water to the pan at the start to give yourself something to baste with and to keep the mustard from scorching.
- The rest of the animalThe recipe uses only the back and hind legs. Save the forelegs, ribs and neck for stock or a small braise; they are too thin to roast alongside without turning to string.
- YieldOne rabbit's saddle and hind legs serve two, generously three with potatoes. Two rabbits will feed four to six.
The Belgian Cook Book was compiled by Mrs. Brian Luck in 1915 from recipes given by Belgian refugees who had fled to England after the German invasion, and it was sold in aid of relief funds. Rabbit with mustard is a fixture of Belgian and northern French home cooking, usually met as lapin a la moutarde or konijn met mosterd, and it belongs to a wider family of Belgian rabbit dishes that also includes rabbit stewed with prunes and with brown beer. Rabbit was cheap, could be raised in a hutch in a small yard, and did not depend on a butcher, all of which made it the meat of ordinary households in the Flemish and Walloon countryside long before wartime scarcity gave it fresh point.