The "A1" cookery book

To Fry Rabbit.— Quite young rabbits are very nice just cut into neat pieces, floured, and fried in butter. Jugged Rabbit. — After the rabbit is prepared, cut it up into joints, and fry it in a saucepan with 2 oz. of butter and forcemeat balls. When the rabbit is nicely browned put it into an earthenware stew-pot with a lid and cover it with some stock, add pepper, salt, mace, and a bunch of herbs, one onion, two tablespoons of mushroom ketchup, and a thickening of flour. Place the lid on the jar and put it in a brisk oven, and let it remain there for two hours, then take out the joints of rabbit and put the forcemeat balls in the jar to get warm. Take them out and put in a dish with rabbit, and strain the gravy over. Serve red currant jelly with the rabbit. Rabbit Pie. — I large rabbit, or 2 young rabbits, 2 hard-boiled eggs, I lb. boiled bacon, flour, salt, pepper. Cut the rabbit into small pieces, take out the breast-bone, and bone the legs. Cut the bacon into small thin slices, mix on a plate 2 teaspoons each of pepper, salt, and flour, and dip each piece of rabbit into the mixture before arranging it in the pie-dish. Put pieces of rabbit at the bottom of the dish, slices of hard-boiled eggs between each layer of meat, and the thin slices of bacon rolled. Pack so that the meat is higher in the centre than at the sides, and put egg and bacon as the top layer. Have ready some gravy made of the bones of the rabbits that you did not use for the pie, and pour over the meat sufficient to three parts fill the pie-dish, reserving some to put in when the pie is cooked through a funnel put in the hole at the top of the pie. Cover the pie with pastry and brush over with yolk of egg. Make a big hole at the top of the pie, and keep open whilst baking, or a rabbit pie may become poisonous. To Roast Rabbit . — Truss the rabbit as you would a hare ; fill the paunch with veal stuffing (page 54), and roast it before a clear fire, or bake it in the oven for about three quarters of an hour, basting well with butter. Ten minutes before it is cooked dredge with flour. When done take out the skewers, put it on a hot dish, and serve with brown gravy, bread sauce, and red currant jelly, or with apple sauce. Salmis of Game. — Roast the birds, but do not let them quite finish cooking. Cut them up in joints and remove the fat, skin, and sinews from the legs, wings, and breasts. Set them on one side till wanted. Put two ounces of butter in an enamel saucepan and three ounces of lean ham finely minced and a dozen button mushrooms, half a scraped carrot, a few sprigs of parsley and thyme, three cloves, a bay-leaf, twelve peppercorns, and a slice of lemon rind. Stir over the fire till the sides of the saucepan appear slightly coloured, dredge in a tablespoonful of flour and let it brown, and then pour in gradually a pint of stock and a large wineglass of sherry. Put in the trimmings of the birds and the bones, and let the sauce boil up ; then draw the saucepan to the side of the fire and let the sauce simmer gently for an hour and a half till it is smooth, thick, and well flavoured. Skim carefully and strain and set aside to get cold, then take off the fat and warm it up in a saucepan, put in the joints of game, and let them slowly get very hot, but on no account boil.