Rabbit Tart or Pie with Fine Herbs

Suppress the skin from two good rabbits; draw and wipe well the meats; separate them at the joints, bone the shoulders and the legs, decrease the size of the backbones without boning then entirely and split each one in two. With the necks, bones and a few game parings, make a small fumet (No. 397) with white wine. Cut half a pound of bacon into small slices; put them in a sautoir with butter, and heat for five minutes while stirring then remove with a skimmer, leaving the fat in the pan, and into this throw two spoonfuls each of onions, shallots and mushrooms; fry together for two minutes, then add the pieces of rabbit; season highly, being sparing of the salt, and besprinkle with pulverized with thyme. Cover the bottom of a pie dish (Fig. 183) intended for the oven with a layer of the bacon; on this place the pieces of rabbit, intermingling them with the fine herbs and bacon; pour into the bottom a few spoonfuls of the prepared fumet reduced to nearly half-glaze. Wet the edges of the dish, cover it with a thin band of puff paste fragments (No. 146) or fine foundation paste (No. 135); wet this band also. Cover the whole with a flat of puff paste parings, cut off the surplus around the edge of the dish, egg over twice and cook for an hour and a quarter in a slow oven; make a hole on the top and pour in the remainder of the fumet.