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Hare, Forcemeat For
If the liver of the hare is perfectly sound, boil it gently for six minutes, mince it finely, and mix it with six table-spoonfuls of finely-grated bread-crumbs, half a tea-spoonful of fresh lemon-rind, chopped very small, a dessert-spoonful of minced parsley, a quarter of a teaspoonful of thyme, and the same of sweet marjoram, a small tea-spoonful of salt, half a teaspoonful of pepper, a little cayenne, if this is liked, and two or three grates of nutmeg. Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly, then work into them two ounces of good butter and the yolks of two eggs. If the liver is not sound, it may be omitted, and then one egg only will be necessary. Everything used in making forcemeat should be quite fresh and sweet, or a very unpleasant flavour may be given to the dish. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for one hare. HARE, FORCEMEAT FOR (another way). (See FORCEMEAT FOR HARE.)
A classic bread-and-liver stuffing for a roast or jugged hare, written for cooks who received the animal whole with its offal attached. The proportions scale easily; the only judgement call is the liver.
- What "sound" meansThe recipe does not define it; presumably it ruled out a liver that was discoloured, spotted, or stained green where the gall bladder had been nicked. The recipe's own escape clause is the safest route: leave the liver out and use one egg instead of two yolks.
- Spoon measuresA dessert-spoonful is 2 teaspoons. Six tablespoons of fine dry crumbs is roughly 1½ oz / 45 g; if you use soft fresh crumbs you will need closer to double the volume for the same weight.
- Seasoning to taste, not to the letterHalf a teaspoon of pepper in this small a quantity is assertive by modern palates, and 'good butter' may well have been salted, so treat the salt as a starting point. Season, then fry a teaspoon of the mixture to taste it before it goes near the hare.
- BindingWork the butter in soft, not melted, and add the yolks last. The mixture should hold together when squeezed but not be wet; add a spoonful more crumbs if it slumps.
- It is not cooked yetThe six-minute boil only firms the liver for mincing. The forcemeat is finished inside the hare or as separate balls, and needs to reach 165F / 74C in the centre — check the stuffing, not just the meat.
- Cooking it separatelyIf you would rather not stuff the cavity, roll the mixture into balls the size of a walnut and bake at 375F for about 20 minutes, or fry them in dripping. This also solves the problem of stuffing slowing the roast.
- Sourcing hareWild hare comes from game dealers in season and may arrive with its offal; farmed rabbit is the usual substitute, though it is milder and the liver is much smaller. A rabbit is a good deal smaller than a hare, so scale the quantities down accordingly.
- YieldEnough for one hare, which is generally reckoned to serve four to six — roughly 8 oz of forcemeat.
Forcemeat — generally traced to the French farce, by way of an English ear that heard "force" — was a fixed part of the Victorian game repertoire, and Cassell's gives it its own alphabetical entry. The liver-and-breadcrumb formula does two jobs at once: it uses up an organ too small to serve on its own, and the two ounces of butter pad out the flesh of an animal that is famously lean and dark. The lemon rind, thyme, marjoram and nutmeg are the standard English sweet-herb seasoning of the period, used across stuffings for veal, turkey and hare alike. The warning that everything must be "quite fresh and sweet" is not padding: hares were often said to be hung to develop flavour, and a cook working with well-hung game had real reason to judge the liver on sight before committing it to the dish.