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Hare, Pickled
Take a hare, either whole or cut into suitable pieces, and pickle it for from four to six days in sufficient vinegar to cover it, with salt, pepper, sliced onions, two bay-leaves, a small garlic root, and three or four cloves. Make a roux with a piece of butter and two table-spoonfuls of flour, add half the pickling vinegar with the clotted blood, stir in two small tumblerfuls of red wine, two ounces of bacon cut into dice, a breakfast-cupful of stock, and the same seasoning as for the pickle. Let this sauce cook for quite half an hour, then put in the hare, cover the pan, and let it simmer slowly over a moderate fire for about two hours.
A pickled hare in the old sense: a long vinegar marinade followed by a slow braise in its own blood and wine, close kin to civet de lièvre and to German Hasenpfeffer. A few of the measures and one point of technique need translating.
- Keep the pickle coldFour to six days in vinegar assumes a cold larder. Marinate in the refrigerator in a non-reactive bowl (glass, glazed ceramic or stainless steel), turning the pieces daily; vinegar will pit aluminium and cast iron.
- The blood is the hinge"Clotted blood" means the blood caught when the hare is paunched, which sets to a jelly. It thickens and darkens the sauce but curdles into grains if boiled. Whisk it with a spoonful of the vinegar to loosen it, stir it into the sauce off the heat, and keep the pan at a bare shiver thereafter; the text has the sauce cook for half an hour with the blood already in it, which risks graining.
- Sourcing hare and bloodA wild hare is 6-8 lb and needs a game dealer; ask for it delivered with the blood, since supermarket rabbit comes without. If no blood is available the dish still works as a wine braise, but it will be paler and thinner. Two farmed rabbits, about 5 lb total, substitute at roughly 90 minutes' braising.
- Tumblerful and breakfast-cupfulA tumbler in this period is usually reckoned at somewhere around 8 fl oz, so two small tumblerfuls of red wine is roughly 1 1/2 to 2 cups. A breakfast cup is larger than a teacup, generally put at 8-10 fl oz; take the stock as a generous cup.
- A small garlic rootThis means a whole head of garlic, not a single clove. One head, cloves separated and lightly crushed, in the pickle is right for the quantity.
- Moderate fireOn a gas or electric hob this is the lowest setting that keeps an occasional bubble breaking; a covered pot in a low oven will do the same work. Two hours at a genuine simmer will toughen the saddle before the legs are done; the legs and shoulders are the pieces that need the full time.
- Salvage the marinadeHalf the pickling vinegar goes into the sauce, which is a great deal of acid. Taste before serving and correct with a lump of sugar or redcurrant jelly, which is the traditional English fix for jugged and pickled hare.
- YieldOne hare serves six to eight. Serve with something starchy that will take the sauce: buttered noodles, mashed potato or fried bread croutons.
Pickling in this entry means marinating, not preserving: the vinegar bath tenderised an animal that could be several years old and tempered the strong, almost iron taste of hare, which was hung for days before being cooked. The finished dish belongs to the same family as French civet and German Hasenpfeffer, both of which are bound with the animal's blood, and the pepper-and-clove seasoning here suggests a Continental model. Hare was a common enough item in a Victorian kitchen with a sporting connection but was never a shop staple in the way beef was, and it kept a strong association with country and gentry tables. The instruction to reserve the clotted blood assumes a household that received the hare whole and undressed, an ordinary expectation then and a special order today.