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GRAVY FOR HARE (another way)
When no stock is in the house, procure half a pound of gravy beef, cut it into small pieces, and put it into a saucepan with three-quarters of a pint of water, two sprigs of parsley, one small sprig of marjoram, and the same of thyme, a large onion with one clove stuck into it, half a dozen peppercorns, and a piece of bread toasted on both sides. Simmer gently for one hour, then strain, thicken the gravy with a dessert-spoonful of flour, let it boil once more for half an hour, add a table-spoonful of soy, and half a tumblerful of port or claret, and serve as before. Probable cost, 8d., exclusive of the wine. Sufficient for a pint of gravy.
A small-batch brown gravy built from scratch for roast or jugged hare, from a period when a stockpot was assumed to be simmering and this was the fallback when it was not. The quantities are imperial and the seasonings do most of the work.
- Gravy beefShin, leg or chuck — a gelatinous cut sold cheap for stewing. Cut it small, as instructed, and brown it first if you want more colour; the original relies on the toast for that.
- Three-quarters of a pintAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so this is 15 fl oz, a little under two US cups. It reduces over the ninety minutes of total cooking, which is why half a pound of beef is enough to flavour it.
- The toasted breadToasted on both sides, it contributes colour and a faint bitterness, and thickens slightly as it disintegrates. It is strained out with the meat. Do not let it scorch to charcoal or the gravy turns acrid.
- SoyVictorian bottled soy was an imported (or domestically imitated) soy sauce, generally thicker, darker and sweeter than modern Japanese shoyu. A tablespoon of ordinary soy sauce will be saltier and thinner; start with two teaspoons and taste, since the liquid has already reduced.
- Half a tumblerfulA tumbler of the period held roughly 8 to 10 fl oz, so this is 4 to 5 fl oz of port or claret — a generous glass. Port gives sweetness that suits hare; claret keeps it drier.
- The second boilingHalf an hour of boiling after adding the flour is longer than needed to cook out the starch — five minutes does that — but it is deliberate reduction. Watch the volume; if it drops well below a pint, let it down with water rather than more wine.
- ThickeningA dessertspoonful is about two teaspoons. Slake it in a little cold water or work it into softened butter before it goes in, or it will lump in hot liquid.
- YieldA pint (imperial, 20 fl oz). Halve it for a single joint.
Hare was standard autumn and winter game in the British kitchen, and because the meat is lean, dark and strongly flavoured, it was usually served with a rich brown sauce — jugged hare, roast hare with forcemeat, hare soup. The book gives more than one gravy for it — this is headed 'another way' — and this one is explicitly the version for a household caught without stock, which says something about how central a standing stockpot was to Victorian cooking. The toasted bread simmered in the liquid is an old thickening and colouring trick that predates commercial gravy browning, and the bottled "soy" reflects the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British taste for dark, savoury store sauces imported or imitated from East Asia. The costing in pence, given exclusive of the wine, was a standard feature of the book and let a cook price a dish against the week's housekeeping.