Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Put the pounded meat into a basin, moisten it very gradually with the warm broth, and rub the paste well with the back of a wooden spoon that it may be free from lumps. Add this thickening to the broth, season pleasantly with additional salt and cayenne, and pass it through a sieve. Put it into a clean saucepan, and when it boils stir into it three-quarters of a pint of cream which has been mixed with a tablespoonful of good arrowroot. Let the soup boil up again, and serve very hot. Sippets of toast dipped in cream and fried may be served with the soup. Time, about three-quarters of an hour to an hour and a quarter to boil the rabbits; three hours to boil the liquor. Probable cost, Is. 6d. per pint. Sufficient for nine or ten persons. Rabbit Soup, White.— A small quantity of good rabbit soup may be made with the inferior parts of the rabbit, that is the head, neck, and shoulders, leaving the best parts, that is the legs and the back, to be stewed, and served as an entree. Divide the rabbit, and soak the part which is to be used for soup in lukewarm water for half an hour. Cut it into small pieces, and put these into a stewpan with as much stock made from bones and water as will barely cover them. Let them ~ simmer gently until the meat is done enough. Take it up, pick it from the bones, and put these back into the liquor with a carrot, a turnip, an onion, a bunch of parsley, a sprig of thyme, a little pepper, salt, and pounded mace. Add a pint and a half of additional stock, and simmer all gently together for two hours. Strain the soup, and leave it to cool. Mince the meat, and RAB ( 696 ) RAB pound it quite smooth. Add to it a slice of stale crumb of bread which has been soaked in milk till soft and afterwards squeezed dry. Moisten this paste gradually with the strained stock, and let it boil for a quarter of an hour. Add a small cupful of cream which has been mixed with a teaspoonful of ground rice or arrowroot, let it boil up once more, and serve. Some cooks add the yolk of an egg boiled hard to the pounded mince, and stir this into the soup to enrich it. When this is done the soup must not boil after the egg is added. Time, three to four hours. Probable cost, Is. per pint. Sufficient for three or four persons. Rabbit, Spanish, way of Cooking. — A stewpan or earthenware pipkin is taken, having a tightly-fitting cover, and of sufficient size to hold a couple of rabbits when cut up into small pieces ; also four moderate-sized Spanish onions in thin slices. A layer of sliced onion is placed on the bottom of the pan ; on it a layer of the pieces of rabbit previously seasoned with salt, pepper, and whatever other seasoning may be desired. This is covered with a second layer of onion, then rabbit, and so on alternately, until the whole of the rabbit is used up. A few thin slices of raw bacon or ham are put over the last layer of rabbit, and all the remaining pieces of onion are placed on the top. The cover is then put on, and the whole stewed at a moderate heat for two hours. A slack oven, a hot plate, or hot hearth, answers admirably. It is needless to say that, as no water may be added, if the pan is placed over the fire the meat is burned and spoiled.