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To Boil Rabbits (For a couple of rabbits make)
514. For a couple of rabbits make a stuffing with a little grated bread, the yolks of three eggs boiled hard and pounded, and one unboiled yolk; add a little butter, and season with pepper and salt; stuff the rabbits well with this, and when done a sauce may be made by mixing a little stuffing taken from the rabbits, in melted butter, or they may be covered with onion sauce, or simple white sauce.
A terse Victorian entry that assumes you already know how to boil a rabbit; the writing is all about the forcemeat and the sauce. The gaps worth filling are cooking liquid, timing, and what "boil" actually meant.
- Do not boilA hard boil turns rabbit stringy and dry. Bring the pot to the boil, then drop to a bare simmer with the surface barely trembling.
- Timing, which the original omitsA young farmed rabbit of about 2.5-3 lb will generally be done in something like 35-45 minutes at a simmer, judged by the leg meat pulling easily from the bone. An older wild rabbit can need considerably longer, up to an hour and a half or more.
- The cooking liquidThe original names none; salted water is the likely assumption. Since the rabbits are stuffed and will need closing up, a light stock with an onion, a blade of mace and a few peppercorns costs nothing and gives you the base for the sauce.
- Grated breadThis is fresh soft breadcrumbs grated from a stale loaf, not dried crumbs. Allow about 1 cup for two rabbits, with 2-3 tablespoons of softened butter.
- The single raw yolkIt is the binder that holds the forcemeat together. The stuffing sits inside the rabbit for the full simmer and cooks through, so this is not a raw-egg dish.
- Stuff loosely and sew or skewerPacked forcemeat swells and splits the belly, leaving the stuffing in the pot. Fill lightly and close the cavity with a few stitches or small skewers, then tie the legs to the body so the rabbit holds its shape.
- Melted butterIn this period "melted butter" is the standard flour-thickened butter sauce, not simply butter warmed in a pan. Loosen it with a little of the cooking liquor before stirring in the spoonful of stuffing.
- Onion sauceThe classic partner: onions boiled soft, chopped, and folded into a white sauce made with milk and some of the rabbit liquor.
- YieldTwo rabbits with stuffing and sauce serve four to six.