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Gateau of Hare
Take the remains of cold hare. Scrape all the meat from the skin and sinews, and pound it in a mortar, with the liver of the hare, a piece of calf's liver (previously boiled), a slice of lean ham, and a small piece of butter. When well pounded, mix with it half its bulk in crumb of bread, which has been soaked in a little cold stock or hare soup, and a table-spoonful of brandy. Add well-beaten eggs till the mixture is of the consistency of a firm batter, pour it into a well-buttered mould, place two or three slices of fat bacon on the top, tie the whole in a floured cloth, and boil gently for an hour or more, being careful that the water is not sufficiently high in the saucepan to enter the mould. Turn out the gateau, and pour round it a sauce made of good hare stock, highly-seasoned and flavoured with port wine and red currant jelly. The gateau may be baked if preferred. Probable cost, etc., according to the size.
A Victorian way of using up the last of a roast hare: the meat is pounded to a forcemeat, bound with egg and steamed in a mould. It reads like a terrine and eats like one.
- "Gateau" here means a moulded loafNothing sweet or cake-like is intended. Treat it as a hot terrine or pâté chaud, cooked in a plain charlotte mould, pudding basin or loaf tin.
- Sourcing hareWild hare is sold by game dealers in season and is much darker and stronger than rabbit. Leftover roast or jugged hare is the intended starting point; the recipe gives no quantities, so scale the mould to however much cooked meat you actually have.
- Hare liver and calf's liverNeither is a supermarket item now. Order calf's liver from a butcher, or use the same weight of chicken livers, cooked through as the recipe specifies for the calf's liver. Any hare liver must be sound and fresh; discard it if the animal has been long hung or the liver is spotted.
- The mortar is optionalA food processor does this in under a minute, but pulse rather than run it — hare worked to a paste turns pasty and dense. Pound or pulse the meat first, then add the livers, ham and butter.
- Crumb of bread"Crumb" is the soft interior of a loaf, no crust, torn and soaked in stock until saturated then lightly squeezed. Half the bulk of the meat sounds generous but it keeps the forcemeat from setting hard.
- Eggs, and how manyNo number is given because it depends on how dry the meat is. Two or three beaten eggs to a pound of forcemeat is a reasonable guide; the recipe asks for a mixture of the consistency of a firm batter.
- Boiling in the mouldThis is a gentle water bath rather than a rolling boil. Butter the mould, cover with the bacon, then a buttered paper, then the floured cloth tied under the rim; set it on a trivet or folded cloth in the pan with the water well below the rim -- the recipe warns it must not be high enough to enter the mould -- and keep it at a bare simmer, topping up with boiling water. The recipe allows an hour or more, so give a larger mould longer.
- If you bake it insteadThe recipe gives no oven setting. A moderate oven, around 350F, in a water bath works; uncover for the last 20 minutes if you want the bacon to colour. Either way, cook until the centre reaches 160-165F — it is an egg custard bound with meat, and undercooking leaves it loose.
- The sauceReduced hare or game stock, seasoned hard, with port and redcurrant jelly whisked in off the boil. Roughly 2 tablespoons of port and 1 of jelly to a cup of reduced stock is a workable guide; strain before pouring round.
Cassell's places this among the made dishes of remains — the Victorian genre devoted to what to do on the second and third day, when a large roast had been carved and the household still expected something composed at table. The technique is French in origin: a pounded forcemeat, bound with soaked bread panade and egg, cooked in a buttered mould is the same method that produces a quenelle or a pain de volaille, and English cookery writers of the later nineteenth century borrowed the vocabulary freely, which is how a savoury loaf comes to be called a gateau. Hare was cheap and plentiful in season and notoriously strong-flavoured, hence the port, brandy and redcurrant jelly, all standard accompaniments to game in this period; the jelly's pairing with hare and venison is long established in British kitchens, and jelly with game is documented in eighteenth-century English cookery books.