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Yorkshire Hare Cake
Procure a hare, three-quarters of a pound of lean ham, four hard-boiled eggs, and a little gravy jelly. Pick the flesh from the bones in pieces as large as possible, divide them into neat collops, about a quarter of an inch thick, and put these aside in a covered dish till wanted. Put the bones and trimmings of the hare into a saucepan, with a calf's foot, a carrot, an onion stuck with two cloves, a bay-leaf, a few sticks of celery, a bunch of parsley, a sprig of thyme, and half a dozen peppercorns. Pour upon the ingredients as much stock or water as will cover them, and let them simmer gently till the gravy is strong and pleasantly flavoured. If the liquor is not so strong that it will jelly when cold, two ounces or more of gelatine may be dissolved in it. Free the jelly entirely from fat; spread a thin layer of it at the bottom of an earthen potting-pan, and fill the pan with alternate layers of the collops of hare, thin slices of ham, the hard-boiled eggs cut into slices, and the gravy jelly. Season each layer with a slight sprinkling of herbs and spices (see AROMATIC SEASONING OF HERBS AND SPICES). When the whole of the ingredients are used, cover the pan with a coarse paste of flour and water, put it in the oven in a dripping-tin, three-parts filled with boiling water, and keep the water boiling round it till the contents are done enough. Take the pan out of the oven and leave it in a cold place till the next day. Turn it out upon a dish, garnish with parsley, and serve as a luncheon, breakfast, or supper dish. Time to bake the cake, one hour and a quarter to one hour and three-quarters, according to the size of the hare. Probable cost of hare, 3s. 6d. to 6s. 6d. each. Sufficient for ten or twelve persons.
A pressed, jellied loaf of hare and ham baked in a water bath and turned out cold — closer to a terrine than to anything a modern cook would call a cake. Most of the work is in the stock, and the dish stands or falls on whether that stock sets.
- Test the jelly before you buildThe hinge of the recipe: chill a teaspoon of the reduced stock on a saucer until cold and see whether it sets firm. A calf's foot gives plenty of collagen, but if you have skipped it or the reduction is thin, add the gelatine at that point rather than discovering the failure when you unmould the loaf. The recipe allows "two ounces or more" of gelatine but gives no quantity of liquor, so judge by the setting test rather than by a ratio.
- Sourcing a hareWild hare is sold in the UK and much of Europe in season, usually already skinned; in the US it is rarely offered commercially, and rabbit is the usual substitute. A hare yields several pounds of usable meat, supplemented here by three-quarters of a pound of ham and four eggs. Rabbit is milder and drier, so a well-flavoured stock matters more.
- Oven temperatureCassell's gives none. A covered pot standing in boiling water wants a moderate oven, 325-350F (160-180C), hot enough to keep the water in the dripping-tin at a simmer but no more. Top up the tin with boiling water as it evaporates.
- The paste is a lid, not foodThe flour-and-water crust seals the pan so the meat steams in its own jelly. Make it stiff, press it firmly to the rim, and throw it away afterwards. Foil and a tight lid do the same job.
- Cook to temperature, not the clockThe stated hour and a quarter to an hour and three-quarters is a guide for a full-sized hare in an earthenware pot. Check the centre reads 160F (71C) — the meat goes in raw and needs to be properly cooked through, and lean hare turns to string if pushed much past that.
- Aromatic seasoning of herbs and spicesThe cross-referenced mixture in Cassell's is a dried blend along the lines of thyme, marjoram, bay, nutmeg, mace, cloves and pepper, ground fine. A commercial quatre-épices with dried thyme and bay added is a fair stand-in; use it sparingly, as the recipe says, or it will bully the hare.
- Potting-pan and unmouldingAny straight-sided ovenproof dish of about two to three quarts will serve — a terrine, a soufflé dish, a loaf tin. The recipe has it stand in a cold place until the next day before turning out; dip the outside briefly in hot water to release it.
- ServingCut in slices at the table with mustard, pickles and bread. Ten to twelve as part of a cold luncheon; six as a main course. It keeps three or four days refrigerated.
"Cake" here carries its older, broader sense of anything shaped in a mould and turned out — the same usage that gives us fish cakes and oat cake, with no suggestion of sweetness. The dish belongs to the long English tradition of potted and pressed meats, which existed to make an autumn's game last into the cold months and to give the sideboard something that could be sliced at breakfast, luncheon or supper without further cooking. Hare, being lean, dark and sinewy, suits this treatment better than roasting: the layers of fat ham and the setting stock supply what the animal lacks. The Yorkshire attribution is of the loose regional sort common in Victorian cookery books and should not be pressed too hard. What is firmly of its period is the calf's foot, the household source of gelatine before packet gelatine became cheap and reliable — Cassell's offers gelatine as an alternative, a sign of the transition already underway when the Dictionary was compiled, generally dated to the 1870s. The price note, three and six to six and six for a hare, places it as a dish for a comfortable household with a game dealer at hand.