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Hare, Larded
The flesh of hare is such dry food, that it is a saying amongst cooks that "a hare with twelve pennyworth of sauce is worth a shilling." When old, it ought never to be roasted without being larded, and a young hare is much improved by the same process. The fore part of the animal may be reserved for stewing, or for soup. Truss the hind part securely; pass one leg through the other, and fasten the skin round with skewers. Hold the back and legs before a clear fire for three or four minutes to "set" the flesh. Lard the thick part of the back and legs with thin strips of fat bacon (see LARDING); cover with one or two folds of buttered paper, and roast before a clear fire for three-quarters of an hour. Take off the paper during the last ten minutes, that the hare may be equally coloured all over. Garnish the dish with forcemeat balls, and send red currant jelly to table with it. Sufficient for four or five persons. Probable cost of hare, from 3s. 6d. to 6s.
This is open-fire roasting written for a kitchen with a spit and a dripping pan, and the whole method is built around one problem: hare has almost no intramuscular fat. The larding is not decoration.
- The hinge: fatHare flesh is lean and close-grained, and without inserted fat it goes dry and stringy well before the middle is cooked. Thin lardons of fat bacon threaded through the thick of the saddle and the haunches, or failing a larding needle, sheets of back fat or streaky bacon tied over the whole hind part, do the same work.
- Fire to ovenRoasting "before a clear fire" means radiant heat, the meat turning in front of the flame rather than sitting in an enclosed box; the recipe relies on the buttered paper rather than on basting, and gives no temperatures. If adapting to an oven, a hot start dropping to a moderate heat is the nearest approximation; the buttered paper stands in for foil, removed for the last ten minutes to colour the surface.
- Three-quarters of an hourThat timing suits the hind part of a young hare, and will leave the meat pink at the bone, as roast hare is often served today. An older animal is unlikely to become tender in 45 minutes, which is presumably why the recipe insists that an old hare never be roasted unlarded, and why old hare is more usually jugged or braised.
- "Set" the fleshThe three or four minutes of direct heat before larding firms the surface so the strips of fat hold and the skewered joints keep their shape. A hot dry pan or a blast under the broiler does it.
- The fore partShoulders, ribs and neck are reserved for stewing or soup because they are too thin to roast. Keep the liver and blood if the animal comes whole and undressed; both are traditional thickeners for hare sauce.
- Buying itHare is not rabbit and cooks quite differently. Expect to order from a game dealer, usually sold whole and often already hung; the American jackrabbit is a true hare and the nearest wild equivalent. The hind part of an average hare gives the quantity called for here.
- Forcemeat balls and jellyThe garnish is a forcemeat of breadcrumbs and fat rolled small and fried or baked, sometimes bound with the hare's liver if you have it; the recipe itself specifies nothing beyond "forcemeat balls". Red currant jelly is doing the same job as the "twelve pennyworth of sauce" in the proverb: sharp sweetness against very lean dark meat.
- Yield and costFour to five servings from the hind part alone. The prices are late-Victorian British money, 3s. 6d. to 6s. for the whole animal, and are of no use for shopping.
Hare was for centuries a wild-caught meat rather than a bought one, and in Britain it fell under the game laws, which is part of why Cassell's quotes a market price at all: the sale of game by licensed dealers was legalised by the Game Act of 1831, and hare duly appeared on poulterers' slabs alongside pheasant. Larding, the insertion of fat into lean flesh with a hollow needle, was a standard technique in every professional kitchen of the period and had its own entry in books of this kind; it fell out of general use as roasting moved indoors and as cooks turned to barding, brining or simply choosing fattier meat. The cook's proverb about twelve pennyworth of sauce is the sort of trade saying that circulated orally without an identifiable source. The advice to send red currant jelly to table is the same convention that still attaches to venison and mutton, and the traditional treatment for an older animal was jugging in a covered jar with its own blood.