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HARE, BARON OF (a German recipe)
In Germany a hare is frequently made up into two dishes, and may be served at different times, which, when the family is small, is often a convenience. The baron, which consists of the back and thighs, is the superior dish, and it is this to which the present recipe refers. Directions for cooking the inferior parts will be given in a succeeding paragraph (see HARE PEPPER). Divide the hare into two parts, cutting close to the shoulder-blades. Leave the kidneys in the loins, and remove the thin skin from the back. Rub the hare over with moist sugar, and leave it for three or four hours, then put it into a deep dish with a finely-minced onion, a bay-leaf, a dozen juniper berries, and a quarter of a pint of vinegar. Let it remain in this marinade for two days, turning and basting it frequently. Drain it and lard it in neat rows with thin strips of bacon. Put it down before a clear fire until it is nicely browned, then put it into a stewpan with the marinade, a tea-spoonful of salt, half a tea-spoonful of pepper, and the contents of the dripping-pan taken from under it. Cover the saucepan closely, and let the meat steam until tender, basting frequently during the process. Put the hare into a hot dish, squeeze the juice of a lemon over it, and send the sauce in which it was stewed to table in a tureen, after having strained and thickened it, and added a large table-spoonful of red currant jelly and a wine-glassful of claret. Time, three-quarters of an hour to roast, three-quarters of an hour to steam. Sufficient for four or five persons. Probable cost of hare, 3s. 6d. to 6s.
A spit-roast-then-braise treatment of the best half of a hare, written for a kitchen with an open fire and a cool larder. The method translates cleanly to an oven and a heavy casserole, but a few of the quantities and the timing need attention.
- What the "baron" isHere it means the back (saddle) and hind legs in one piece, cut close to the shoulder blades so that the forequarter is left behind. The name borrows from the baron of beef, a double sirloin; in both cases it signals the prime undivided joint rather than any particular animal. Sourcing the hare: wild brown hare comes from game dealers, usually already skinned and often already hung; a whole one may run 5-8 lb, so the baron is roughly 3-5 lb. Farmed rabbit is not a substitute in flavour, and being very lean it will dry out over an hour and a half of cooking.
- Archaic measuresA quarter of a pint of vinegar is 5 fl oz (imperial), and a wine-glassful of claret is about 2 fl oz. "Moist sugar" is unrefined soft brown sugar; light brown sugar is the nearest thing on a modern shelf.
- The two-day marinadeDo this in the refrigerator, in a non-reactive dish, not in a larder. Two days in vinegar, onion and juniper is a genuine sauerbraten-style cure and it both tenderises and flavours; turn the meat twice a day rather than "frequently".
- Larding, and whyHare has almost no internal fat. Threading thin strips of bacon or pork back fat through the saddle with a larding needle is the point of the exercise; if you have no needle, bard instead by tying sheets of fat over the meat, and accept that it will not baste from within.
- Fire to oven"Put it down before a clear fire until nicely browned" is spit-roasting. Use a hot oven, 425F, in a shallow tin for 30-40 minutes, then transfer meat and pan juices to a lidded casserole with the strained marinade for the braise. The "contents of the dripping-pan" are the browned fat and juices, and they carry most of the flavour.
- TimingThree-quarters of an hour of steaming will suit a young hare. An older or heavier animal needs 1½ to 2 hours at a bare simmer, covered, before the leg meat gives way. Judge by a fork in the thigh, not the clock, and keep the liquid below a boil so the muscle does not seize.
- The sauceStrain, skim the fat, then thicken with beurre manié or a little arrowroot off the boil. Add the redcurrant jelly and claret at the end and warm through only; boiling the wine away flattens it.
- YieldFour or five, as the book says, with the shoulders and forequarter reserved for the hare pepper. Serve with something starchy and plain -- potato dumplings, spätzle or noodles are the German accompaniment.
This is a British cookery dictionary's rendering of a German way with hare: a long sour marinade of vinegar, onion and juniper, larding with bacon, and a finish of redcurrant jelly and red wine, the same logic that produces sauerbraten from beef. The vinegar bath was practical as well as flavourful, since hare was hung to ripen and the acid both tempered the gaminess and softened muscle from an animal that had spent its life running. Cassell's habit of dividing the carcass into a "baron" for the good dish and a pepper or ragout from the forequarter reflects the late nineteenth-century household economy the book was written for, where a hare arrived whole from a game dealer or a shooting friend and had to stretch across more than one dinner. The price note -- 3s. 6d. to 6s. -- puts it well within reach of a middle-class kitchen of the period, when hare was, by this reckoning at least, among the more affordable game.