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Civet of Hare
(England.) Clean and cut up a rabbit; fry all in some butter, adding some chopped ham, about 2 tablespoonfuls. Then add 1 1/2 pints stock, thickened with some flour, 6 small onions, 1 bayleaf, 1 bit of mace, salt, pepper, and 6 chopped mushrooms. Simmer 1 hour, strain the sauce, add a spoonful of port wine, or the juice of a lemon. Arrange the meat on toast and pour over the sauce. RABBIT (as cooked in Venice.) Cut up three fine rabbits, melt 1 ounce of butter and add 1 ounce chopped ham and some parsley, onion juice, and herbs; fry, and add the meat. When brown, add 1/2 cup of white broth and cook until tender. Strain the sauce, add the yolks of 3 eggs, a tablespoonful of capers, and salt and pepper. If not enough, add hot cream or milk and pour over.
Two related stews sit under one heading: an English civet built on brown stock and port, and a Venetian version finished with egg yolks. Both are straightforward braises, but the second one can be ruined in thirty seconds.
- The hinge: never boil the egg-yolk sauceIn the Venetian rabbit, the strained cooking liquid must be off the boil before the yolks go in, and it must not return to a simmer afterwards. Temper the yolks with a ladle of hot liquid first, then whisk them back in over low heat until the sauce coats a spoon at around 175F; past that it curdles into scrambled egg.
- Hare or rabbitThe title says hare, the instructions say rabbit, and the book treats them as interchangeable. Farmed rabbit is mild and tender and will be done in the hour given. A true wild hare is dark, sinewy and needs two to three hours of gentle simmering, so judge by the meat rather than the clock.
- 1 1/2 pints of stockThree cups if the book is using American measure, about 3 3/4 cups if imperial. Either is fine for one jointed rabbit; you want the pieces roughly covered.
- "Thickened with some flour"Easiest route is to dust the fried rabbit and ham with about 2 tablespoons of flour, cook it a minute in the butter, then add the stock gradually. That gives a light gravy rather than a paste.
- Six small onionsMost likely pearl or pickling onions, peeled and left whole rather than chopped yellow onions. The recipe only says to strain the sauce, so the onions and mushrooms are presumably left behind; there is no reason not to fish them out and serve them alongside the meat.
- A bit of maceA blade of mace, the lacy covering of the nutmeg seed, sold whole in some spice shops. A scant 1/8 teaspoon of ground mace substitutes; it is close to nutmeg in character and easy to overdo.
- White brothA pale, unbrowned veal or chicken stock. Half a cup for three rabbits is very little liquid, and you will want two to three cups to keep the meat covered while it cooks and to have sauce enough for the yolks.
- Yield and servingOne rabbit feeds three or four; the Venetian recipe's three rabbits will serve eight to ten. The toast should be a firm white bread, well dried in the oven so it does not dissolve under the sauce.
Civet comes from the Old French cive, an onion, and the name is generally associated with a dark stew of furred game built on a bed of small onions. In its classic French form the sauce is finished with the hare's own blood, which gives the dish its near-black colour and slight metallic richness; some recipes written for English and American households drop that step, as this one does, and lean on stock, flour and a spoonful of port instead. The pairing here is characteristic of the book, which collects dishes under national labels and sets an English civet beside a Venetian rabbit thickened with egg yolks and sharpened with capers, the same animal treated two ways. Hare and rabbit often shared a page and a cooking pot in turn-of-the-century kitchens, which explains a recipe titled for one and written for the other; both were sold whole and jointed at home.