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To Truss and Boil Rabbits
89. Rabbits should be well washed for boiling, and, if very bloody at the shoulder, they should be treated as described for hare at (k), par. 79. Truss them with the heads brought back against the right side (see fig. 128), then boil, They are best when dropped into boiling water, which should be kept gently boiling and well skimmed for half an hour, or rather better. They are generally covered with onion sauce, or with white sauce. Sometimes a sauce is made with the livers chopped and mixed with fine herbs.
A plain Victorian treatment of a whole rabbit, poached and sauced. The instruction that matters is the water: it must go in boiling and then be held at a bare tremble, since a hard boil shreds the thin flesh off the ribs and toughens the legs.
- What kind of rabbitHalf an hour suits a young animal of about 2 1/2 to 3 lb, which is roughly what a farmed rabbit weighs today. A mature wild rabbit will still be sinewy after thirty minutes and is better jointed and braised for an hour or more.
- TrussingThe head drawn back against the right side, as the book directs, is a presentation device for serving the animal whole. If you are carving in the kitchen, skip it and simply tie the forelegs and hind legs close to the body so the joints cook evenly.
- "Gently boiling"The book means what it says: water held just at the boil, bubbling lazily rather than rolling hard. Skimming is not fussiness; rabbit throws a grey scum that will settle back onto the pale meat and spoil its look.
- DonenessThe hind leg is the last part to cook. It is done when the thickest part reaches about 160-165F and the meat pulls easily from the thigh bone; the joints should still hold together.
- Bloody at the shoulderThe cross-reference is to the hare instructions at par. 79 (k), which are not reproduced on this page; the usual nineteenth-century remedy for a bloody shot wound was soaking in cold water, changed once or twice. Half an hour to an hour is enough for a rabbit.
- Onion sauce and white sauceBoth are the same base: a white roux loosened with milk, or milk and some of the cooking liquor. For onion sauce, simmer two chopped onions until soft in the milk before making up the sauce, or stir them in cooked and drained.
- Liver sauce and "fine herbs""Fine herbs" is the English rendering of fines herbes; the classic French mix is parsley, chervil, tarragon and chives, though Victorian English usage was looser and often meant simply chopped mixed herbs. Poach or fry the liver through before chopping it into the sauce rather than adding it raw.
- YieldOne rabbit gives two to three modest servings. The cooking liquor, strained and reduced, is worth keeping for the sauce or for soup.
Boiled rabbit under onion sauce was one of the standard cheap meats of the Victorian table, and this book treats it as a companion to hare, its larger and gamier relative, with the trussing and blood-drawing directions carried over by cross-reference. Rabbit was abundant in nineteenth-century Britain, farmed in hutches and warrens as well as shot, and its pale mild flesh was often treated much as chicken was, boiled and then covered with a milk-based sauce that flattered the colour of the meat. The instruction to bring the head back against the side belongs to an era when a small animal could arrive at table whole, so the shape of the trussed carcass was part of the dish.