Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

Rabbit with Mushroom Sauce. — Take the meat off the back of a Rabbit in two long fillets, and divide each, so as to make four pieces. Take off the legs and shoulders of the Rabbit, and simmer them for two hours. Then reduce the stock to a quarter of a pint. Lay a piece of bacon at the bottom of a stewpan, and put upon it the pieces of Rabbit, adding a sliced onion and a bunch of herbs. Cover the whole with bacon, pour the stock in, and simmer gently for one hour.. For the sauce : Wipe and peel half a pound of young mushrooms, mince them and their stalks, and put them into a small stewpan with two ounces of butter beaten to a cream. Simmer gently over a low fire for ten minutes, stirring all the while. Mix a roux in a little of the stock, simmer gently for another quarter of an hour. Pass the sauce through a strainer, add a couple of tablespoonfuls of cream, warm the sauce and pour it over the pieces of rabbit when you take them out of the pan. Broiled Rabbit, American Fashion. — Open the Rabbit out flat, laying a plate upon it to keep it so, and steep in salted water for half an hour, having taken off the head. Cut the backbone across in eight or ten places, and then grill the Rabbit on a well-buttered gridiron over a clear fire. Baste continually, and turn the Rabbit often, so that it may be cooked thoroughly. When the Rabbit is quite brown and tender rub it well with mustard, pepper, and salt, and send it to table flat. Rabbits, if young, can be cooked in several of the ways recommended for chicken. They are good done au riz, or they can be made into a blanquette, and, if carefully treated, Rabbits make a good curry. Old Rabbits should go into the stock-pot without any other attempt at cooking them. Of course Rabbits, although coming under the Ground Game Act, and therefore in season all the year round, are not, strictly speaking, Game. Still they naturally follow Hares in cookerybooks, and cannot well be placed elsewhere. GIBELOTTE Gibelotte. — Some writers of cookery books imagine that Gibelotte is the French word for Giblets. The word has nothing to do with Giblets, but is the name for an excellent ragout of Rabbit, peculiar to France. Wyvern’s way of making it cannot be improved upon. Cut up the Rabbit for stewing, and put the pieces in a simple marinade composed of two tablespoonfuls of salad oil, four of red wine vinegar, an ounce of finely-chopped onion, twelve peppercorns, and six sprigs of parsley. Keep this in a cold place for twelve hours. When the time comes for cooking the Gibelotte, take a quarter of a pound of leanish bacon, cut it into dice, and fry them with half an ounce of butter in a stewpan till coloured. Now take out the bacon, and put in the pieces of Rabbit, let them fry in the butter and bacon fat for six minutes. Then return the bits of bacon, dredge an ounce of flour over the Rabbit, let this brown, and then cover the pieces with broth and a gill of Marsala. Season with pepper and salt, add a bouquet of sweet herbs, and bring to the boil for three minutes. Then add a clove of garlic (for English palates a shallot), and two dozen button onions. Simmer steadily till the Rabbit is cooked. Serve it neatly arranged on a dish with the onions round it. If mushrooms can be got, put a dozen buttons into the stew when the simmering commences. (This is a regular French dish.)