RABBIT SALAD

1 rabbit, boiled
Lettuce

Dressing:

yolks of six eggs, hard boiled
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1/4 c. vinegar
1/4 c. prepared mustard
4 tbs. oil, olive or vegetable

Bread and butter, crackers, grated cheese

Having a fine young rabbit boiled very tender, mince it fine from the bones. Mince an equal portion of lettuce, which should be of the loaf lettuce, that heads up, and is quite white and frangible [breakable]; mix them together, and set them by till the dressing is prepared. Mash very fine the yolks of six boiled eggs, add to it a tea-spoonful of salt, a tea-spoonful of pepper, half a gill of vinegar, half a gill of made mustard, and four table-spoonfuls of sweet oil. Mash and stir it together till it becomes very smooth; then put it over the rabbit and lettuce, stir it up lightly together with a fork, put it in a dish of suitable size, and send with it to table plates of bread and butter, crackers, grated cheese, &c. It is a supper dish, and seldom eaten at any other meal. Do not prepare it till just before you sit down to table, that it may be as fresh as possible. Rabbits make a very good pie, prepared like a chicken pie.

The Kentucky Housewife by Mrs. Lettice Bryan, 1839

Comment: A 17th century cookbook was recently reprinted under the modern-day title "First Catch Your Rabbit." While Mrs. Bryan's book was intended for a market-shopping urban audience rather than live-off-the-land backwoodsmen, rabbits were a common nuisance and a threat to gardens everywhere. This is a very elegant dish and could certainly be made with chicken or veal as an alternative if rabbits are uncommon in your apartment building, or the neighbors frown on backyard game hunting.

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