Run Rabbit, Run (but not too fast!)

Day five in the 1943 kitchen and the haybox slowcooker is out again.

This time it's rabbit stew. So far I have avoided using rabbit, even though we have a considerable number invading our garden and eating the veg patch every night, because it seemed like cheating to have meat that was extra to the rations. But it's now week three so I think we have shown that we can stick to the allotted amount, and our 1940s counterparts would have had no hesitation in shooting the rabbits and saving the veg from all those tiny teeth!

Actually, I did cheat a bit here. We have a local butcher who sells rabbit (the other customers always look at me strangely when I buy it for some reason) but I forgot about half day closing and he was shut when I went to get one. I suppose I should have reacted as a wartime housewife would have and come up with a meatless meal but I kind of wanted to include rabbit this week, for something different to talk about if nothing else! So I used the next best thing, chicken thigh. Some people think it's indistinguishable from rabbit, personally I disagree. But it is close enough.

There were lots of interesting recipes for rabbit, depending partly on it's age (apparently you can judge that by squeezing the skull to see if it's soft - not for the squeamish). Boiling was good for an older animal and you could then take your boiled meat and put it in dumplings, make potted meat, or just serve with parsley sauce. I went for a simple stew with vegetables, parsley, salt and pepper and stock, served with dumplings (brown ones, that wheatmeal flour gets into everything!)

After dinner we had hot cocoa. Interestingly the British Restaurants always served a hot drink but there was only one option, either tea, coffee (made with extract) or cocoa. Can you imagine your average working man being told that the only available drink with lunch was chocolate? I'm not really sure how well that would go down now, but then it was a good way to get people to have lots of nutritious milk. Being pregnant in 1943 means I'm meant to have 10 pints of milk a week so I have decided to adopt the same policy. There have to be some advantages, right?