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Gravy for Hare
Thicken half a pint of stock with a dessert-spoonful of flour, mixed smoothly with a small quantity of the liquid at first, and afterwards added to the rest. Let it boil for twenty minutes, then add a table-spoonful of soy, pepper and salt, if necessary, and half a tumblerful of port or claret. Send a little of the gravy in the dish with the hare, and the rest in a tureen. Probable cost, exclusive of the wine, 2d. Sufficient for nearly a pint of gravy.
A simple flour-thickened wine gravy for roast or jugged hare, written for imperial measures and a store cupboard that assumed bottled soy on the shelf. The whole thing rests on one point: the long simmer is what makes it taste of anything but raw flour.
- Half a pintCassell's is British, so half a pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 cups. Use hare or game stock if you have the trimmings; otherwise a strong beef or brown chicken stock.
- A dessert-spoonfulBetween a teaspoon and a tablespoon, conventionally about 2 teaspoons. That is a light thickening for 10 fl oz plus wine, giving a pouring gravy rather than a coating one.
- SoyNineteenth-century bottled "soy" was a dark, salty sauce sold as a browning and seasoning agent, and period cookery books treat it alongside the ketchups. It may have been imported sauce or a British imitation of it. A tablespoon of dark soy sauce is a reasonable modern stand-in; light soy will be saltier and thinner.
- Salt last, and sparinglyThe instruction "if necessary" is doing real work. Between the stock, the soy and any pan juices from the hare, the gravy is usually seasoned before you touch the salt cellar. Taste after the wine has gone in.
- Half a tumblerfulA Victorian tumbler held roughly 8 to 10 fl oz, so half is 4 to 5 fl oz, about half a cup. That is a generous proportion of wine to stock; if you want it less sharp, add it earlier and let it simmer a few minutes to cook off the raw edge.
- The twenty-minute boilNot padding. A flour slurry needs sustained simmering to lose its pasty taste and for the starch to swell fully, and the reduction concentrates the stock. Keep it at a bare simmer, uncovered, and stir occasionally so it does not catch.
- LumpsSlake the flour with a few spoonfuls of cold or barely warm stock to a smooth cream before it meets the hot liquid, exactly as written. Adding flour straight to hot stock sets the outside of each particle instantly.
- Yield and servingJust under a pint, roughly 2 cups, as the recipe states. Spoon a little around the joint and send the rest separately so the carved meat is not swamped.
Hare was widely available and relatively inexpensive in Victorian Britain, and it came to the table either roasted with forcemeat stuffing or jugged in a covered pot; both wanted a dark, winey gravy to carry the gaminess. The bottled "soy" called for here belongs to a family of dark commercial seasonings, alongside mushroom ketchup, walnut ketchup and Harvey's sauce, that British cooks used through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries chiefly to deepen colour and add savoury weight to gravies; the English word derives from Asian soy sauce reaching Europe through the East Indies trade, though the British bottlings varied a good deal from the original. The costing of twopence, and the pointed "exclusive of the wine," is characteristic of a book that priced every dish: the gravy itself was trifling, the port or claret markedly less so.