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Hare Pie
Skin the hare, cut it into convenient-sized joints, season these with pepper and two pounded cloves, and fry them in hot butter for ten or fifteen minutes, then put them aside to cool. Pound the liver in a mortar with four ounces of bacon, a shallot, finely-minced, a teaspoonful of parsley, a tea-spoonful of thyme, and half a tea-spoonful of pepper. Whilst pounding add the blood till the forcemeat is of the proper consistency, or, if blood is not liked, a glass of port or the yolk of an egg may be substituted. The head and inferior parts may be stewed for gravy, with the same seasoning which would be used for jugged hare. Line the edge of a pie-dish with good crust, arrange the hare and the forcemeat inside it in alternate layers, cover the whole with thin slices of bacon, and pour over it half a pint of the gravy, to which has been added a tea-spoonful of red currant jelly, and, if liked, a glass of port. Cover with crust, bake in a good oven, and serve hot. Time, an hour and a half to bake. Probable cost of hare, 3s. 6d. to 6s. Sufficient for eight or ten persons.
A Victorian game pie built in three stages: fried joints, a blood-bound forcemeat, and a stock made from the trimmings. The instructions assume you have broken down a whole hare yourself, so most of the modern work is in the sourcing.
- The hinge: cool the joints before buildingThe hare is fried for ten to fifteen minutes and then, as the recipe directs, set aside to cool before the pie is assembled. Building with warm joints risks slackening the forcemeat.
- Getting a hareOrder from a game dealer or a butcher who handles game; one hare will feed the eight to ten the recipe claims. Ask for it with the liver and blood reserved, since the recipe depends on both. Rabbit substitutes reasonably but is milder and leaner, so increase the bacon.
- Blood in the forcemeatHare blood is a traditional binder and thickener and is collected in the body cavity when the animal is hung. If you cannot get it, the recipe's own alternatives — a glass of port or an egg yolk — are the right ones. Blood must never be boiled on its own, but here it is bound into forcemeat and baked through, which is fine.
- "A good oven"Read as a hot oven, in the region of 400F, to set and colour the pastry, dropping to about 350F for the remainder of the hour and a half. Cover the crust with foil if it browns before the hare is tender.
- Seasoning "as for jugged hare"The recipe leaves this to the cook's existing repertoire. Stew the head and inferior parts in a seasoned stock of that kind and strain it; you need half a pint (10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups) for the pie.
- Lining the edge onlyThis is a dish pie, not a raised pie. Pastry goes on the rim of the dish to give the lid something to seal against, and the filling sits directly in the dish. Use a shortcrust or rough puff stiff enough to take an hour and a half.
- Units and moneyFour ounces of bacon is about 115 g; half an imperial pint is 10 fl oz, roughly 1 1/4 US cups. "A glass of port" in this period is usually reckoned at around 2 fl oz. The costing in shillings is late-Victorian and tells you only that hare was then an economical way to feed ten.
- ServingServe hot, with more red currant jelly at the table. The pie is rich and dark, and takes plain accompaniments well.
Hare pie belongs to the English game cookery that Cassell's catalogued at the height of the shooting season trade, when hare hung in poulterers' windows from autumn through winter. The whole animal is used here in a way that is now unusual: the prime joints are layered into the pie, the liver and blood go into the forcemeat, and the head and "inferior parts" are boiled down for the gravy, so nothing is wasted. The red currant jelly and port are a familiar Victorian treatment for dark game, meant to answer the meat's dryness and slightly livery edge with sweetness and acid. The instruction to season "as for jugged hare" is a reminder that these dictionaries were written for cooks who already had a repertoire, and were consulted for arrangement and proportion rather than taught from scratch.