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One Turnip (Bunch of Sweet Herbs)
A bunch of Sweet Herbs.
Quarter pound of Butter.
Three ounces of Flour.
One pint of Stock.
One glass of Port Wine or Claret.
One tablespoonful of Red Currant Jelly.
Cut up the onion, carrot, and turnip and fry them in the butter in a stewpan with the herbs.
Joint the hare into neat pieces and add it to the vegetables, and let it simmer gently for half an hour; then mix the flour into a thin paste with a little of the stock, stir it to the hare, add the rest of the stock, and cook slowly for one hour. Just before dishing up add the port wine and red currant jelly. Dish the hare up neatly, strain the sauce over it: add forcemeat balls if liked.
The ingredient list on this page has been cut off at the top, so the hare, onion and carrot appear only in the method. Read the instructions first and reconstruct the shopping list from them.
- The missing ingredientsA jointed hare, one onion and one carrot belong at the head of the list alongside the single turnip named in the title. One hare of about 5-6 lb serves four to six; a whole rabbit (2-3 lb) works with the same quantities of butter, flour and stock but needs roughly half the cooking time.
- Sourcing the hareWild hare is sold by game dealers in autumn and winter, often whole and unskinned; ask for it skinned and jointed if you would rather not do it yourself. Ask for the saddle and legs separately if you can; the forelegs and ribs are thin and will overcook in the time given for the hind legs.
- A bunch of sweet herbsIn late-Victorian usage this means parsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf tied with string, sometimes with marjoram or savoury. Tie it so you can lift it out before the wine goes in.
- Stewpan, not casseroleA stewpan here is a wide, heavy, lidded pan used on the hob. Any heavy Dutch oven does the job; as written the dish is cooked on the stovetop throughout, and no oven is mentioned.
- Three ounces of flour to a pintThat is a very thick roux ratio by modern taste, about 85 g flour to 570 ml stock. Slake it in cold stock as directed to avoid lumps, and be ready to loosen the sauce with more stock during the hour's cooking, since it will tighten considerably.
- One glass of wineThe measure is inexact; a wineglassful in books of this period is usually reckoned at around 2 fl oz (60 ml), though some sources allow up to twice that. Port will give a sweeter sauce, claret a leaner one that may want the full spoonful of jelly to balance it.
- Add the wine off the boilThe instruction to add port and jelly "just before dishing up" matters. Stir them in, let the pan come back to a bare simmer for two or three minutes to take the raw edge off the alcohol, then serve. Long boiling after this point dulls the fruit and flattens the sauce.
- Cooking timeNinety minutes total is short for an older wild hare. Test a hind leg at the end of the hour; if the meat still resists the fork, keep it at a gentle simmer for another 30-45 minutes and top up with stock.
- Forcemeat ballsThe optional garnish was typically breadcrumbs, suet, chopped herbs and egg, often with the hare's liver, either fried or poached in the sauce. Cook them separately and add at the end so they do not cloud the strained gravy.
Hare stewed with root vegetables, port and redcurrant jelly is a simplified cousin of jugged hare, a staple of British game cookery from the eighteenth century onward. In the older form the jointed hare was sealed in a tall stoneware jug set in a pan of boiling water, and the sauce was thickened at the end with the animal's blood, reserved when it was paunched; in many later books the blood is dropped in favour of a flour thickening, and the jug in favour of an ordinary stewpan, though blood-thickened versions persisted. What survives is the sweet-sharp finish. Redcurrant jelly with hare and venison is often linked to the older taste for sweet-sharp game sauces, though that line of descent is traditional rather than documented.