England

July 15, 1673

RABBIT STEW
from When an Earl Meets a Girl

Cut your Rabbit and roll in some flower with a little salt and a little peper, then melt your butter and frye. Add a quantity of Ale and stewed Mushroomes with halfe a pint of gravie, and boyle with some Lemon-peele, some nuttemeg grated, and an Oynion with whole cloves.

—from Receipt Book, author unknown, circa 1680

INGREDIENTS

• 1-½ pounds boneless rabbit meat, cubed
• ½ cup flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 cups ale or stout
• 1 cup mushroom ketchup
• 1 cup rabbit or beef stock
• peel of 1 lemon in large pieces
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 peeled onion, stuck with 4 to 6 cloves

INSTRUCTIONS

• Season flour with salt and pepper.
• Roll meat in flour and fry in the butter until brown.
• Place browned meat in stockpot. Add the ale, stock, ketchup, lemon peel, and nutmeg. Mix everything together. Add the clove-studded onion.
• Cover and simmer 1–2 hours, until rabbit is tender. Uncover for the last 15 minutes, to allow sauce to thicken.

To make this gluten free: Use gluten-free flour (I use gf Jules Flour), gluten-free beer (I use Redbridge), and make sure the stock (broth) and ketchup you use are also gluten free. Everything else in this recipe is naturally gluten free.

Lauren's notes: They don't sell rabbit meat in my local (Southern California) supermarkets, but I've made this with other meats, and it's easy and delicious. It's especially good with cubed beef, which takes about an hour to cook, or with veal, which takes less time to cook (30–45 minutes). I serve this with rice, to take advantage of all the yummy gravy. If you can't find mushroom ketchup, tomato ketchup works fine!

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In When an Earl Meets a Girl, Amy offers to make Rabbit Stew for Colin at Greystone Castle…

Amy had gone quiet again. Colin's gaze was drawn back to to the pile of glittering jewelry. "Is there anything here that you made?"

"Oh, many things." She turned back to her trunk, sifting through the jewels until she found an oval, coral-colored cameo and handed it to him shyly.

He smiled down at it. Set into a braided gold bezel, the intricate carving was a profile of a beautiful young woman. She wore a little necklace of twisted gold wire with a tiny diamond pendant attached, as though it were dangling in her cleavage.

Suddenly Colin narrowed his eyes and looked more closely. "She looks like you," he said in surprise, and she giggled a little.

"Papa said the same thing. I didn't hold with that at the time, but then Mama agreed, and others, and I finally decided she must be me after all. Although I swear I hadn't intended to carve a likeness of myself. See, her hair is loose, and I never used to wear my hair that way."

"Yet you've worn it loose since the fire. Why did you change it?"

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