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Rabbit Salmi
Place two rabbits in a baking-pan; add one slice of onion, one stalk of celery cut fine and one bay leaf; brush the game with melted butter, then cook for thirty minutes. Lift the meat from the pan, add to the pan two tablespoons of butter and the same of flour, and brown until dark. Add one pint of hot water, stir well, and when smooth add one teaspoon of salt, one tablespoon of worcestershire sauce, one tablespoon of capers and twelve stoned olives. Lay the rabbits again in the pan, cover closely and again simmer for thirty minutes. Dish the game, arrange the olives for a garnish, strain the sauce over the meat, sprinkle on finely chopped parsley and serve.
A salmi is a two-stage dish: the game is part-roasted, then finished in a sauce built from the roasting pan. The recipe assumes you know the oven should be hot for the first stage, and it never says so.
- Oven heatThe recipe gives no temperature, and never actually says oven. Brushing with butter and the later reliance on pan drippings point to a fairly hot oven, in the region of 400-425F, so the rabbit colours rather than steams; the browned bits are the foundation of the sauce.
- The rabbitsTwo rabbits means two whole animals; dressed weight runs from about 1.5-2.5 lb for wild to 2.5-3 lb for farmed. The recipe treats them whole from start to finish. Jointing them into hind legs, forelegs and saddle makes them easier to fit in a pan, but that is a departure from the text.
- Wild versus farmedFarmed rabbit is tender and the timings hold. Wild rabbit is leaner, and an older animal will be tougher; the second stage may then need 60 to 90 minutes of covered simmering rather than thirty. Test that the hind leg meat pulls from the bone.
- Brown the roux properly"Brown until dark" means a deep hazelnut colour, three to five minutes over direct heat, stirring constantly. Stop short of black. This is the difference between a salmi and a pale stew, but a scorched roux is bitter and must be thrown out.
- Stoned olivesStoned is pitted. Use green olives in brine, about twelve; the recipe treats them as both seasoning and garnish, so keep them whole and lift them out before straining.
- Salt and the sauceOne teaspoon of salt goes in before the capers, olives and Worcestershire, all of which are salty in their own right. Season at the end instead, after the sauce has reduced under the lid.
- FinishingStraining the sauce removes the onion, celery and bay, and any flour lumps. If it has thinned during the covered simmer, reduce it briefly after straining; it should coat the meat.
- YieldTwo rabbits serve six, or four generously. Serve with something to take the sauce, such as boiled potatoes, noodles or plain rice.
Salmi (more often salmis in French) is a classic game preparation in which the bird or beast is roasted only part way, then jointed and finished in a rich sauce made from the pan and, in the grandest versions, the pounded carcass and liver. It is generally traced to the game cookery of French restaurant kitchens of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where it was most often made with woodcock, partridge or wild duck. What appears here is the domesticated American version: rabbit rather than feathered game, a plain brown roux instead of a stock-and-carcass reduction, and Worcestershire sauce standing in for wine. That substitution is characteristic of a book written for household cooks rather than for professionals, translating restaurant French into terms a home kitchen could manage. Rabbit earned its place because it was still, at the turn of the twentieth century, cheap, widely available and as likely to be shot as bought.