No. 612 Lapereaux à la Tavernière.
Tame and even wild rabbits are extremely useful in cooking, though very little used for flancs; they may be served with propriety in the ways I have here described, particularly in the country, where they are so plentiful, and your resources frequently so limited.
Skin and truss two young rabbits as for roasting, then put two ounces of butter in a flat stewpan, (large enough to contain the rabbits,) cut half a pound of mild lean ham into large dice, put them into the stewpan, with the butter, and fry them gently ten minutes, then put in the rabbits, put the cover over the stewpan and place it over a slow fire, turn them round now and then until they take a light-brown colour, add fifty button onions, which also colour, take out the rabbits, add two ounces of flour to the ingredients in the stewpan (mix well) and a quart of white stock; place the stewpan over the fire, keep it stirred until boiling, put back the rabbits, with a good bunch of parsley, thyme, bay-leaf, and four cloves; let it simmer, skim off the fat, which will rise to the top, take out the rabbits, you have previously taken out the onions with a spoon and deposited them in a clean stewpan, with the pieces of ham; reduce the sauce to the thickness required, pass it through a tammie into the stewpan containing the onions and ham, add twenty heads of mushrooms, dress your rabbits on a dish slantingly, the heads pointing different ways, sauce over and serve. Finish the sauce with a liaison of two yolks of eggs mixed with half a gill of cream.