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Hare, Puree Of
Cut up the remains of a roasted hare. Put a few slices of ham into a stewpan, then the hare, two whole onions, a blade of mace, two quarts of stock, and a bouquet garni. Set it on the stove to simmer for two hours or more; strain it off, pull all the meat from the bones, and pound it with a little of the ham boiled with it, and the crust of two French rolls which have been soaked in broth. Rub the whole through a tamis and mix with a pint of boiled claret and enough of the stock to bring it to the consistency of cream. Put into a double stewpan, or one surrounded by a larger one of boiling water. When quite hot work a little butter into it, and serve with sippets.
This is a thick game soup built from the carcass of a hare already roasted and eaten — the Victorian second-day dish. The hinge is the final reheating: once the purée is thickened with bread and enriched with butter, it must never boil, or it separates and turns grainy.
- Hare, and what to use insteadWild hare is sold by British and European game dealers in season but is rare in North American shops. The remains of a roasted rabbit, or a roasted duck or two pheasants, will give a comparable purée, though rabbit is much milder and wants a little more claret and a scrap more ham to carry it.
- QuantitiesTwo quarts of stock is about 2.3 litres in British measure; a pint of claret is 20 fl oz / 570 ml. The recipe gives no weight for the hare, since it assumes whatever is left on the bones — perhaps 12 oz to 1 lb of picked meat from one hare.
- TamisA tamis is a drum sieve of woven cloth or fine mesh, and the meat is pushed through it with a wooden mushroom. A food mill on its finest plate does the same work; a blender or processor followed by a pass through a fine chinois is quicker.
- French rollsThe crust of two French rolls means the outer crust of two small soft white rolls, not baguette. It is the thickener here, standing in for flour, and it should be soaked soft in broth so it disappears entirely into the purée.
- Boiled claretClaret is dry red Bordeaux or any dry red. Boiling it first is not decoration: it cooks off some of the raw alcohol and concentrates the wine, so it reads as depth rather than sharpness.
- Double stewpanThis is a bain-marie — a pan set inside or over a larger pan of boiling water. Use a heatproof bowl over simmering water, or the lowest setting on the hob with constant stirring. The purée is starch- and butter-thickened and will catch on direct heat.
- Mace and bouquet garniA blade of mace is one piece of the dried aril of nutmeg, worth seeking out for game — ground mace at about a quarter teaspoon is a fair substitute. Fish out the mace, onions and herbs before straining; nothing aromatic goes through the sieve.
- SippetsSmall triangles or dice of bread fried in butter or clarified butter, or toasted. Serve them alongside rather than floating, so they stay crisp.
Purées of this kind sit at the centre of nineteenth-century English cookery's debt to France: a strong stock, meat pounded and forced through a tamis, bread rather than flour as the body, and a bain-marie to hold it. The same method will make the soup from partridge, pheasant or grouse. It also shows the economy that governed a large Victorian household, where a roasted hare was expected to yield a second, quite grand dinner from its bones. The pairing of hare with red wine and ham is old and well established in both French and English game cookery; claret was the ordinary English name for red Bordeaux, which came into England in quantity through Bristol and London.