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Hare Soup

Take a fine hare, skin and empty it, cut it into joints, take out the eyes, split the head in two, and put it, with two pounds of the shin of beef, cut into small pieces, into a saucepan, with a gallon of cold water. Remove the scum as it rises, and, when the water boils, put with it two onions, with three cloves in each, two or three sliced carrots, half a dozen peppercorns, and a salt-spoonful of bruised celery-seed, tied in muslin. Let the soup simmer very gently for two hours, then take out the best joints, remove the meat from the bones, return the latter to the stewpan, and simmer again for another hour, during the latter part of which a dessert-spoonful of salt and a bunch of sweet herbs, tied in muslin, may be added. If these are put into the soup too soon, their flavour will evaporate. Fry two chopped onions in a little butter, mix very smoothly with them two tablespoonfuls of ground rice or flour, moisten with a little of the liquid, then add it to the rest. After it has boiled, strain it through a colander, pick off the meat from the pieces of hare which were left in the soup, pound it in a mortar, pass it through a coarse sieve, and return it to the liquid; put in the pieces of hare which were set aside, and when they are thoroughly heated, add the blood of the hare, if this is liked. Add a quarter of a pint of port, and serve with forcemeat balls in the tureen. Sufficient for six or eight persons. Probable cost, 2s. per quart, supposing the hare to cost 3s. 6d.