Roast Hare

Ingredients

• the hare
• plenty of dripping
• a little butter
• half a glass of rich port wine
• a few spoonfuls of red-currant jelly
• a tiny piece of cinnamon
• six cloves
• two bay-leaves
• the juice of half a lemon
• some flour

Method

1. 1

   Stuff the hare, wipe the inside, and sew it up.

2. 2

   Hang it before the fire, keeping it at a distance.

3. 3

   Melt dripping in a pan and baste the hare often.

4. 4

   Roast for 1 to 2 hours depending on size.

5. 5

   Near the end, baste with butter and dredge with flour for color.

6. 6

   Serve with gravy and red-currant jelly.

Nutrition per serving

As published

This recipe was extracted from Practical home cookery (1906) by A. G. Payne, page 70. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

plenty of dripping should be ready melted in the dripping-pan, and the cook should keep hasting as often as possible ; this latter is the secret of having the hare moist, and without that hard dry coating outside which we mentioned. As for the time a hare takes to roast, it is almost impossible to say a small one taking an hour, and a very large one nearly two. Much depends, also, on the fire, and the distance the hare is kept from it in the early stages. Bear in mind, however, that underdone can be remedied, and overdone can’t. An inexperienced cook can cut into the joint at the back, about where the hind leg joins the body, and look ; or stick a little piece of firewood in after the knife, and judge by the colour whether it is done or not. On the average, an hour to an hour and a quarter will be ample. Near the 134 PRACTICAL HOME COOKERY. finish, however, take away the dripping-pan and get a little butter ; baste the hare with this to finish, putting the hare near the fire so as to froth the butter, and at the same time dredge the hare with some flour, so as to get it a nice brown colour, and serve some good rich, hot gravy with it in a separate tureen. As hare is an awkward joint to carve, it will be found best not to pour gravy over it, for the sake of the table-cloth and the feehngs of the carver. Red-currant jelly should always be handed round with hare, and the gravy wiU be much improved by a few cloves, a tiny piece of cinnamon being boiled in it and then strained off ; add also half a glass of rich port wine, and by rich I mean not a dry wine, but rather port -wine dregs. The last spoonful of port in the bottle should alw^ays be reserved for purposes of tills kind. We will now discuss wiiat is, to my mind, a far pre- ferable method of cooking hare, and that is, jugged hare. For this purpose a stone jar with a wide mouth will be found to be better than an ordinary jug, which used to be used, and wliich gives its name to the dish. Have ready some good brown gravy, free from fat. Next cut up the hare into joints, each joint not being larger than w'Ould be considered the proper quantity for one help ; fry these joints in a little butter in a fr}ing-pan, so as to turn them a nice browm without cooking them. Have the empty jar made hot by placing it in the oven, and have a cloth ready to tie over its mouth. Then as soon as the joints of hare are browned, throw them into the hot empty jar, pour a large glass of port wine in too, and tie the cloth quickly over the mouth of the jar, and let it stand for, say, a quarter of an hour or more, on the dresser. By this means the fumes of the wine will rise — the jar being hot — and will impregnate the meat of the hare in a way in wliich it would never do were it simply GAME AND GRAVY. 135 added to the gravy. After this has stood some time, untie the jar and add the gravy, with a small piece of cinnamon, six cloves, two bay-leaves, and the juice of half a lemon. The gravy should be strongly impreg- nated with onion, and should be thickened with a little arrowroot rather than with brown thickening. The port will materially assist the colour ; a good spoonful of red-currant jelly may also be added to it and dissolved in it, though in addition red-currant jelly will be handed round with it. Next place this jar up to its neck in a large saucepan of boiling water, only take care that the jar is well tied down, or much of the flavour will be lost ; allow this to remain in the boding water for about an hour to an hour and a half, when it will be found to be sufficiently done, as jugged hare, hke roast hare, is generally over-cooked father than under. Stuffing- balls should be added to it, but not cooked with it. For this purpose prepare some stuffing as directed for roast hare. Roll this stuffing into small balls, a little larger than marbles, and throw them into some boiling fat. A few minutes will be sufficient to cook them ; drain them on a cloth and make them hot in the oven before adding them to the jugged hare. As I before mentioned, hare soup is best made from fresh hare, in which case as much as possible of the blood of the hare

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.