Home › The Principles of Cookery › Liver Sauce for Roast Hare
Liver Sauce for Roast Hare
Be sure that the liver is quite sweet. Wash it in two or three waters, and stew it in a quarter of a pint of good beef gravy, then mince it finely, and with it a clove of shallot, two table-spoonfuls of picked parsley, and a quarter of a tea-spoonful of thyme. Return the liver to the saucepan; let all boil up together. Then add a tea-spoonful of chilli vinegar, two table-spoonfuls of currant jelly, and two of port. This sauce may be used for roast rabbit, if a glassful of sherry be substituted for the port and jelly. Serve immediately. Time, a quarter of an hour to boil the liver. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for six persons.
A Victorian game sauce built on the offal that came inside the hare, thickened by nothing but the minced liver itself. The points below cover the units, the vanished pantry items, and the one timing that will spoil it.
- The hinge: do not boil the liver for a quarter of an hourLiver firms up and turns grainy well before fifteen minutes. Poach it gently in the gravy until just cooked through — roughly 5 to 8 minutes for a hare's liver, depending on size — then mince. The second "boil up" should be brief, only enough to bring the aromatics together.
- "Quite sweet"Period shorthand for fresh and unspoiled, with no sour or ammoniac smell. Hare and rabbit livers taint quickly; if it smells off, or shows white spots or hardened patches, discard it rather than washing it and hoping.
- A quarter of a pintFive imperial fluid ounces, so a generous half cup (about 140 ml). "Good beef gravy" here means meat broth or reduced stock rather than thickened pan gravy — use a well-flavoured beef stock, unsalted if possible.
- A clove of shallotOne segment of a multi-lobed shallot bulb, not a whole shallot and nothing to do with garlic. A single small shallot is close enough.
- Picked parsleyLeaves stripped from the stalks before measuring, flat-leaf or curly. Two tablespoons of picked leaves reduces to about a tablespoon once finely minced.
- Chilli vinegar and currant jellyChilli vinegar was a standard cruet item: dried red chillies steeped in wine vinegar. Red wine vinegar with a pinch of chilli flakes stands in. "Currant jelly" in a game sauce of this period usually means redcurrant.
- If you have no hare liverButchers rarely sell hare or rabbit offal separately. Two or three chicken livers, trimmed of any green-tinged spots, give the same body and a milder flavour.
- Yield and serviceThe original says six, which is about right for a boat of sauce alongside a roast hare. It is a thick, granular sauce, not a smooth one, and it stiffens as it cools — send it to table hot, as instructed.
Roast hare was a fixture of the English game season, and the household economy of the period assumed the liver came home with the animal, so recipe books gave it a purpose. The same formula, with sherry swapped for the port and jelly, served roast rabbit — a lighter meat wanting a less sweet sauce. The redcurrant jelly and port are the standard Victorian answer to strong dark game meat, sweet and acid together to cut the richness, while chilli vinegar supplied the heat. The costing of sixpence is a reminder that these dictionaries were written for cooks working to a housekeeper's budget: the liver itself was free with the hare.