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Gibelotte of Rabbits
Cut in twelve even pieces one fresh, well-cleaned rabbit, place in stone jar with a sliced onion, two branches parsley, a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon pepper and two gills good vinegar. Mix well, let marinade for two hours, lift up pieces and drain on a cloth. Finely chop one ounce larding pork, place in frying pan, and when thoroughly melted add three ounces salt pork cut in one-third-inch pieces, then brown until a nice golden colour. Take up pieces of bacon with skimmer and keep on a plate. Arrange rabbit pieces in pan, briskly cook for five minutes on each side, sprinkle over two tablespoons flour and stir well. Moisten up to height of pieces with one-third white wine, two-thirds white broth mix well and let boil for ten minutes. Take up pieces with fork, place in saucepan and strain sauce through Chinese strainer over rabbit. Gently brown twelve small white onions in frying pan with a tablespoon lard and add to rabbit with a bean garlic. Tie in a bunch two branches parsley, a branch chervil, sprig thyme, bay leaf, clove, and add to pan. Season with half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons pepper, add bacon, mix well, cover pan and let cook for ten minutes. Add six sliced, peeled, fresh mushrooms and cook for eight minutes. Take up bouquet and garlic, skim fat from surface, dress on a dish, arrange six heart-shaped bread croutons around and serve.
A classic French rabbit fricassée written in the shorthand of a professional kitchen, where terms like "white broth" and "Chinese strainer" needed no explanation. A few conversions and one timing correction bring it into a home kitchen.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so two gills of vinegar is one cup — enough to cover the pieces in a deep bowl. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, making "two saltspoons pepper" half a teaspoon.
- The pork, twice over"Larding pork" is unsalted fatback, rendered here purely for its fat; a tablespoon or two of neutral oil or lard does the same job, which is about all an ounce of chopped fat will yield. The three ounces of salt pork cut in one-third-inch pieces are lardons, and the recipe later calls them bacon — same pieces, returned to the pan.
- White brothBouillon blanc: an unbrowned veal or chicken stock. Any light, unsalted chicken stock works. The moistening is one part dry white wine to two parts stock, poured just level with the meat, so roughly a cup of wine to two of stock for a whole rabbit.
- Chinese strainer and bean of garlicA chinois — the conical fine-mesh strainer. A "bean" of garlic probably renders the French gousse (clove), though it may simply mean a bean-sized piece; either way it goes in whole and is fished out at the end with the bouquet, as the recipe directs.
- Cooking time is shortThe written simmer totals under half an hour, which suits a young rabbit portioned small but will leave farmed rabbit from a butcher tough. Give the covered pan 45 to 60 minutes at a bare simmer, adding the onions partway and the mushrooms for the final ten minutes so they keep their shape.
- The two-hour marinadeAn hour or two in vinegar is plenty; longer and the acid begins to whiten and firm the surface of the meat. Drain and dry the pieces thoroughly or they will steam rather than brown.
- Twelve even piecesTwo front legs, two hind legs split at the joint, the saddle cut across into three or four, and the ribcage halved. A whole rabbit runs 2½ to 3 lb and serves four.
- CroutonsBread cut into hearts and fried in butter or the rendered pork fat until golden — they are set around the dish at the last moment, not cooked in the sauce, and go soggy if they wait.
Gibelotte is the standard French country stew of rabbit in white wine, the pale counterpart to civet, which uses red wine and is thickened with blood. The name is generally traced to Old French gibelet, a dish of small game or fowl, the same root that gives English "giblets." Its structure — salt pork lardons, small glazed onions, mushrooms, a bouquet garni, croutons around the rim — is the identical garnish set used for coq au vin and bœuf bourguignon, and it shows how thoroughly nineteenth-century French cooking had standardised its parts. Rabbit was an everyday meat in France and in much of America when Filippini compiled this book; a hotel chef could assume his readers knew how to break one down, and the recipe spends its words instead on the order of operations. The vinegar marinade is a holdover from the days of genuinely wild rabbit, where it tempered a strong, gamey animal of uncertain age.