Home › The Principles of Cookery › Hare, Gateau Of
Hare, Gateau Of
Prepare a hare as if for roasting. Cut it into joints. The best parts--the back, thighs, and shoulders--may be used for the gateau, and the remainder for a civet or for soup. Take the meat from the skin and sinews, cut it up, and pound it in a mortar, with one pound of the neck or loin of veal, half a pound of fresh, lean pork, and a quarter of a pound of unsmoked fat bacon. A table-spoonful of soup or stock may be added while pounding, so as to make the meat into a smooth paste. Add pepper, salt, and cayenne to taste, together with two or three small onions, finely minced, and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley. Beat and add one at a time half a dozen raw eggs. Line the bottom and sides of a baking-dish with slices of fat bacon, cut very thin. Spread the chopped meat over it, about an inch and a half in thickness, and place two or three more slices upon it. Repeat until all the meat is used, letting the bacon be uppermost. Place the skin of the bacon or a coarse crust of flour and water on the top of the dish, to keep in the juices, and bake in a moderate oven. If the oven were too hot, the meat would be hard and dry. When cool, dip the dish into hot water, turn out the cake, place on a napkin, and garnish according to taste. This dish is good for breakfast or luncheon, and will keep for some days. It should be eaten cold. Time, about four hours to bake. Probable cost of hare, 3s. 6d. to 6s. Sufficient for six or eight persons.
This is a terrine in all but name: a forcemeat of hare, veal and pork baked slowly in a bacon-lined dish and eaten cold. The critical instruction is the one the original gives twice over -- keep the oven gentle, because a hot oven squeezes the fat and juices out and leaves a dry, crumbly brick.
- Oven temperature"A moderate oven" here means 325-350F (160-175C), and the lower end is better. Setting the dish in a roasting tin of hot water gives more even, gentler heat than the bare shelf.
- Cook to temperature, not to the clockFour hours reflects a coal range and a large, deep dish. Judge by an instant-read thermometer in the centre: 160-165F (71-74C) for a pork-and-veal mixture. Depending on depth, a modern loaf tin or terrine may reach that in two to two and a half hours.
- Getting a hareWild brown hare is sold by game dealers in season and is dark, strong and lean. A whole rabbit, or 2 lb of boneless rabbit or venison, stands in acceptably, though the result is milder. Wild-shot animals may carry shot; run your fingers through the boned meat before it goes in the processor.
- Fat bacon"Unsmoked fat bacon" means green streaky bacon or plain pork fatback, not modern cured smoked rashers, whose salt and smoke will dominate. Ask a butcher for fatback or bardiere sliced thin, or use unsmoked pancetta.
- The mortarA food processor does the pounding in a minute. Keep everything cold, pulse rather than run continuously, and stop while a little texture remains -- fully emulsified game paste turns pasty. The spoonful of stock is there to loosen the mix; add it only if needed.
- Six eggsThe recipe gives no weight for the hare; the veal, pork and bacon alone come to 1 3/4 lb, so the total is perhaps three and a half pounds if the hare contributes a similar amount. On that reckoning six eggs is a generous bind by modern standards and gives a firm, sliceable, slightly custardy set. Four will produce a looser, more meaty terrine if that suits you better.
- Seasoning"Pepper, salt and cayenne to taste" is impossible to judge raw. Work to about 1.5 percent salt by weight of the total mixture -- roughly 25 g for 3.5 lb -- and fry a teaspoon of the mix to taste before committing.
- The flour-and-water crustThis is luting paste, a sealing lid rather than pastry, and it is not eaten. A double layer of foil pressed tight over the dish does the same job.
- Cooling and turning outCool with a weight on top -- a board and a couple of tins -- so it compresses and slices cleanly. The hot-water dip to release it works, but a brief one; too long and the surrounding fat melts.
- Keeping"Will keep for some days" assumed a cold larder. Refrigerate it, keep it covered, and eat within four or five days; it also freezes well whole.
- Yield and costSix to eight as a lunch dish, more as a starter. The 3s. 6d. to 6s. is pre-decimal sterling and gives only a rough sense of what a hare cost at the time.
Gateau here means simply a cake in the older, shape-based sense -- a moulded loaf turned out whole -- and the dish is a British kitchen's version of the French terrine or pate de lievre. Nothing of an expensive game animal is wasted: the recipe puts the back, thighs and shoulders into the gateau and sends the remainder to a civet or to soup. Cassell's, compiled for middle-class households in the later nineteenth century, is full of these cold moulded meats because they suited the era's habits: they were made ahead, kept in a cool larder for several days, and appeared at breakfast, luncheon or on a sideboard buffet without further cooking. The bacon lining serves the same purpose as the fatback bardes of a French terrine -- it bastes lean game from the outside and seals the surface as it cools.