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Entrées: Civet
Civet de chevreuil is jugged roebuck.
Slices from any joint are served in Piquante sauce with currant jelly, etc., as Émincé de chevreuil. For Salmis de chevreuil à la Sultane, the meat is soaked in marinade, stewed, and served in a brown sauce with port wine and pickled sultanas.
HARE.
Lièvre, or lévraut, sauté is cut in pieces, sauté, and served in a sauce of broth and wine with mushrooms, etc.
Civet de lièvre is jugged hare; à la St. Hubert, it is served with a compote of cherries, and a rich sauce with wine and chopped truffles.
Filets de lièvre, or lévraut, are fillets of hare fried ENTRÉES. and dressed in a circle with a brown sauce.
They are also piqués - larded and braised, and served with Poivrade sauce. Served with tomato sauce, they are piqués sauce tomates. À la Bourguignotte, they are cut in halves, larded and braised; dressed in a crown with a brown sauce, bacon cut in dice, young onions, etc.
Côtelettes de lièvre à la Dauphine are slices cut from the fillets with a small piece of bone stuck in each, breadcrumbed and fried; served with Piquante sauce and chopped olives. Arranged alternately with little cutlet shapes of rich hare stuffing, and served with a game sauce, garnished with mushrooms and button onions, they are called à la Chef.
For Turban de lièvre à la Péronne, the fillets are dressed in the same way, and arranged in a circle alternately with quenelles of forcemeat of hare; white sauce with vinegar and pickled onions.
Boudins de lièvre. Rolls of forcemeat of hare, breadcrumbed and browned. Aux cerises, they are garnished with stewed cherries. - RABBITS.
Roebuck, hare and rabbit, in the entrée position — a made dish of small portions, allowed to be as elaborate as the kitchen liked because there was not much of it.
- Civet means juggedA civet is a stew of furred game thickened at the end with the animal’s own blood, which is what gives it the dark gloss and the slight ferrous edge. That is also why you probably cannot make one: game is sold dressed and the blood goes with the offal. Without it you have a good stew, not a civet, and it is worth knowing the difference rather than pretending.
- Piqué means lardedStrips of pork fat threaded through lean meat with a needle, so the inside bastes itself. Hare and roe are lean enough to need it. A butcher can do it, or you can lay fat bacon over the fillets and tie it, which is barding and gets most of the way there.
- The fake cutlet, againCôtelettes de lièvre à la Dauphine are slices off the fillet with a piece of bone pushed into each so that they arrive looking like chops. Then they are alternated on the dish with cutlet-shaped pieces of hare forcemeat, so half the cutlets are not even meat. The arrangement was the dish.
- Roebuck is smallChevreuil is roe deer, the smallest deer commonly eaten in Britain. A saddle or a leg from one is a fraction of the weight of the farmed red or fallow venison a butcher is likely to sell you, and a recipe written for the one will not time out against the other.
- The marinade was doing a different jobMeat soaked in marinade here had usually hung for a while in a cool larder, and the vinegar and wine were working on flavour that had developed in the hanging. Game sold today is chilled fast and handled young. Give it the same long acid soak and you will mostly make it mealy.
- Boudins are not black puddingBoudins de lièvre are rolls of hare forcemeat, crumbed and browned. Boudin in this book means a shape, not a blood sausage, and the forcemeat is the real work: pounded meat, fat and a binder, worked until it will hold a roll.
Hare and roebuck were not ordinary purchases. They arrived by gun, or as a present from someone who had been shooting, and a page offering ten ways to serve hare is a page for a household that could expect such presents and had to use them before they spoiled. That also explains the position. The entrée came after the fish and before the roast, in small portions, and it was the slot in the dinner where whatever had come in that week could be turned into something that looked intentional.