No. 2145

Fillets of Young Rabbits with Currant Sauce

Filets de Lapereaux Sauce aux Groseilles

Remove the nerves and pare two young rabbit fillets, also the minion fillets; lard them with small lardons (No. 4, Fig. 52) and marinate for two hours, then strain the marinade and put its vegetables on the fire to fry in butter, braise the fillets in this, glaze and dress in a circle. Break up the bones and cook them in butter, adding a little flour; with this make a small roux (No. 163), season it with pepper and salt, adding an onion and a bunch of garnished parsley, moisten with boiling port wine, reduce and strain through a sieve, boil it up again and despumate well adding some currant jelly, dissolving it slowly in the sauce; strain the whole through a tammy and pour a part of it under the meats, serving the remainder separately. The fillets can be roasted instead of braised if so desired.

← No. 2144 Fillets of Young Rabbits a la Lavoisier Rabbit, Hare & Squirrel No. 2146 Fillets of Young Rabbits with Artichoke or M →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer assumes a brigade kitchen and a shelf of cross-referenced base preparations. Stripped down, this is two rabbit loins, larded and braised, with a port and red currant sauce built on the bones.

What you are buyingA lapereau is a young rabbit. The two fillets are the loins running either side of the backbone; the "minion fillets" are the small tenderloins beneath them, the rabbit equivalent of filet mignon. The recipe gives no dressed weight and no number of servings.
Larding, and whyRabbit loin is almost fatless and dries out quickly. Larding means threading strips of chilled pork back fat or fatty salt pork through the meat with a larding needle. If you have no needle, bard instead: wrap the loins in thin sheets of fat or caul and tie.
The marinadeNo formula is given in this entry; marinades are set out elsewhere in the book. A typical period marinade is red or white wine with oil, sliced onion, carrot, thyme, bay and crushed peppercorns. The recipe specifies two hours.
Braising temperatureBraising -- Once the strained marinade vegetables are softened in butter, the fillets go on top and braise covered with very little liquid. The recipe gives no temperature or timing; keep the heat gentle and check early, as larded loins cook quickly.
Roux No. 163The cross-reference is simply butter and flour cooked together to a blond or brown stage. Here the broken bones are browned in butter first and the flour added to them, so the flour toasts in the rabbit fat before the port goes in.
DespumateAn old kitchen verb meaning to skim. Hold the sauce at a bare simmer with the pot pulled half off the heat so the scum and fat collect on the cool side, and lift them off repeatedly. This is what makes the difference between a clear glossy sauce and a cloudy one.
TammyA tammy is a woolen or heavy cloth strainer through which sauce was forced with two people twisting the ends. A fine chinois pressed with a ladle, or a sieve lined with damp muslin, does the same job.
The currant jellyRed currant jelly, not fresh currants and not blackcurrant. The recipe has the sauce boiled up and well despumated with the jelly dissolved into it slowly; avoid hard boiling once it is in, which dulls the shine. Season with salt and a little more pepper at the end.
Glazing and dressingTo glaze, reduce the strained braising liquid to a syrup and brush it over the fillets. "Dress in a circle" means arranging the fillets in a ring on a round platter; the recipe then has part of the sauce poured under the meats and the remainder served separately.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is written for cooks who already know the French repertoire: the numbered cross-references to roux, marinades and lardons stand in for instructions he saw no need to repeat. Ranhofer treats rabbit here as game, dressing it with the sweet-and-sour wine sauces that classical cookery used for venison, hare and wildfowl. The pairing of red currant jelly with game is long established in both French and English kitchens, and the same combination of currant jelly and port underlies Cumberland sauce; the acidity and sugar cut through the richness of larded, braised meat. The alternative offered in the last line, roasting rather than braising, is a small concession that young rabbit is tender enough not to need the long moist treatment its older relatives do.