Jugged Hare
Skin, wipe with a towel dipped in boiling water, to remove the loose hairs, dry thoroughly and cut in pieces, strew with pepper and salt, fry brown, season with two anchovies, a sprig of thyme, a little chopped parsley, nutmeg, mace, cloves, and grated lemon peel. Put a layer of the pieces with the seasoning into a wide-mouthed jug or a jar, then a layer of bacon sliced very thin, and so on till all is used; add a scant half pint of water, cover the jug close and put in cold water, let boil three or four hours, according to the age of the hare; take the jug out of kettle, pick out the unmelted bacon and make a gravy of a little butter and flour with a little catsup. A tea-spoon of lemon peel will heighten the flavor. - Mrs. Louise M. Lincoln.
Jugging is a water-bath braise: the sealed jug sits in a kettle of boiling water so the hare cooks in its own concentrated juices with almost no added liquid. Everything about the method depends on that seal, so start there.
- The jug is the pointUse a heatproof stoneware jar or a wide-mouth canning jar, cover it tightly with foil and a lid or a tied cloth, and stand it on a folded towel or trivet in the kettle so it does not rattle against the bottom. Water should come two-thirds up the outside; top it up with boiling water as it evaporates over the hours.
- Start in cold waterThe instruction to put the jug "in cold water" and bring the whole thing up together is not fussiness. A cold ceramic jar dropped into boiling water can crack.
- "A scant half pint"Just under a cup, call it 220 ml. That is all the liquid it gets, and it should be all it needs; the meat and bacon give up plenty. Resist adding more or you will end up with soup rather than the dense, dark gravy that makes the dish.
- Catsup meant something elseCatsup meant more than one thing -- in 1877 an unqualified "catsup" might be tomato, but mushroom and walnut ketchups were equally current and are the likelier reading in a game recipe: thin, dark, salty, closer to Worcestershire than to anything in a squeeze bottle. Modern tomato ketchup will make the gravy sweeter and lighter than intended.
- Anchovies and maceTwo salt-packed anchovies, mashed, dissolve into the sauce and read as depth rather than fish. Mace is the outer coat of nutmeg, warmer and less sharp; if you only have nutmeg, use it lightly since the recipe already calls for nutmeg separately.
- Timing and age"Three or four hours, according to the age of the hare" is honest advice. A young hare or a farmed rabbit will be tender in about two and a half hours at a bare simmer; an old wild hare can want four or more. Test with a fork at the shoulder rather than watching the clock.
- SourcingWild hare comes from game dealers, usually already skinned and jointed, and is much darker and stronger than rabbit. A 2.5-3 lb rabbit substitutes well but is leaner, so keep the bacon generous.
- Finishing the gravyPour the jug liquid off, skim the fat, and whisk it into a small butter-and-flour roux off the heat rather than thickening in the jar. Add the lemon peel at the end so it stays bright.
- YieldA whole hare serves four to five with potatoes or bread. The original gives no number, as was normal in a book written for cooks feeding whatever household they had.
Jugged hare is an English dish of long standing, its name from the tall earthenware jug set in a pot of water so the meat stewed in a sealed vessel over the day's fire without scorching or drying. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English cookbooks give it often, in many versions with the animal's blood stirred into the gravy at the end to thicken and darken it; this version omits the blood in favor of a butter-and-flour gravy. Buckeye Cookery was compiled in Marysville, Ohio, from contributions by named women, and its game chapter reflects a Midwest where wild rabbit and hare were still ordinary food rather than specialty butcher's goods. The wipe with a towel dipped in boiling water is a practical detail from an era when the cook did her own skinning: hot water lifts the loose hairs that cling to the carcass after the pelt comes off.