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Jugged Hare
1 Hare, 1 cup Crisco, 1 pounds gravy beef, 1 onion, 1 lemon, 6 cloves, 1 cup port wine, few forcemeat balls, salt, red pepper and pepper to taste. Skin, paunch and wash hare, cut it into pieces, dredge with flour, and fry in hot Crisco. Have ready 1 pints gravy, made from beef, and thickened with flour. Put this into jar; add pieces of fried hare, onion stuck with cloves, lemon peeled and sliced, and seasonings; cover jar tightly put into saucepan of boiling water, and let it stew until hare is quite tender, taking care to keep the water boiling. When nearly ready pour in wine, add forcemeat balls, and allow to cook 10 minutes. Serve with red currant jelly. For forcemeat balls, mix together in basin, 2 tablespoons Crisco, 4 tablespoons crumbs, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, teaspoon poultry seasoning, teaspoon grated lemon rind, seasoning of salt, pepper, red pepper, and paprika, and 1 beaten egg, form into small balls, roll in flour, and add to hare.
A period Crisco-sponsored version of a very old English dish, cooked in a sealed jar set in boiling water rather than over direct heat. The method is sound but the printed measurements have lost their fractions, and hare is now a special-order item.
- Missing fractionsThe plural "pounds" and "pints" show that fractions have dropped out: probably 1½ lb gravy beef and 1½ pints gravy, though the exact figures cannot be recovered, and the bare "teaspoon" of poultry seasoning and of grated lemon rind may also have been a half. Treat those figures as approximate rather than literal, and judge the gravy by whether it covers the meat.
- The jug is the pointThe jar sits in a saucepan of boiling water, so the hare never exceeds about 100C and stews in its own steam and gravy. A tightly lidded casserole in a 300F (150C) oven does the same job. Keep the outer water at a genuine boil and top it up; if it drops off, the cooking stalls.
- How long is "quite tender"An adult hare needs 2½ to 3 hours by this method. Young or farmed rabbit is done in about 1½. The meat should pull from the bone with no resistance; hare that is merely cooked through is still tough.
- Sourcing the hareWild hare is a game-dealer or online order in most places, sold whole either in the fur or already skinned and drawn; if you can get one prepared, "skin, paunch and wash" is a step you can skip. Wild rabbit is the closest substitute; farmed rabbit is milder and much leaner and will want less time.
- CriscoThe book was written to sell it. Any neutral solid or liquid fat works for browning the pieces, and butter or beef dripping gives more flavour. Use about 1 cup total across the frying, which is generous — half is enough for browning in a modern heavy pan.
- Gravy beefShin, leg or chuck. Simmer it with the hare trimmings to make the 1½ pints of stock, then thicken with a flour roux. The beef itself is there for the broth, not the plate, though it is worth shredding into the pot.
- Forcemeat ballsMix, chill for twenty minutes so they hold, roll in flour and add for the last 10 minutes only. Dropped in earlier they disintegrate into the sauce. They can also be fried separately and set on top if you want them to keep their shape.
- Port and jellyThe wine goes in near the end so it does not cook flat, and the redcurrant jelly is not optional garnish — the sweet-acid note is what balances a very dark, gamey sauce. A tablespoon stirred into the gravy plus more at the table.
- YieldA hare serves about six with mashed or boiled potatoes and a green vegetable.
Jugged hare takes its name from the vessel: a tall earthenware jug or jar, stoppered and stood in a pot of boiling water, which let a tough old animal cook for hours without scorching in kitchens that had only an open fire. English recipes under that name go back to at least the eighteenth century, and the classic versions thicken the sauce with the hare's own blood, caught when it is paunched — a step quietly dropped here, along with much of the gaminess, for an American readership. What remains is the shape of the dish: long gentle cooking, port, cloves, lemon, forcemeat balls and the obligatory redcurrant jelly. Its appearance in a piece of shortening promotion is the more telling detail: the point was to demonstrate that a new hydrogenated vegetable shortening could stand in for butter, lard and dripping in anything at all, including the most old-fashioned game cookery in the English repertoire.