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Roast Hare
510. Hare should not be roasted unless moderately young, and well kept, or it will be tough and devoid of flavour. The hare should be paunched as soon as possible, and its inside kept dry by wiping it, at the same time rubbing it with a little pepper-dust. Most cooks, after skinning the hare, soak it for two or three hours to get the blood out from the shoulders; but this is a great mistake, for it does not effect this object until it has completely robbed the muscles of the back and legs of their juice and flavour. The proper plan is to carry a knife between the joints of the shoulders and the breast, as if about to divide them, and then, after wrapping up the whole of the rest of the body in a thick cloth, pump water into these slits for ten minutes; or, better still, turn a cock of water upon them, to wash the blood from the insides of the shoulders where it lodges, without touching the back and loins. Next fill the body with stuffing (par. 334), and truss according to the directions given at page 38. Proceed to roast it before a quick fire, not too fierce, and baste it perpetually for the first half-hour with hot milk; afterwards use dripping, and towards the last give it plenty of flour with the dredger, alternately basting with great care, and dredging, until a fine frothy coat is raised, in which the art of a good cook is shown. The time required is about an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half, according to size. Made-gravy is necessary, and currant-jelly.
A spit-roasting method for a whole hare, written for a cook with an open fire, a dredger and a pump at hand. The hinge is fat: hare is one of the leanest meats in the kitchen, and the milk-basting and flour-frothing here exist entirely to keep the surface from drying to leather.
- Getting a hare at allHare is sold by game dealers and some online butchers, whole or skinned and jointed, in autumn and winter. A young hare (a leveret is a hare under a year) may run in the region of 5-6 lb undressed and serve four to six; older animals are generally reckoned better braised or jugged than roasted, which is in line with the warning at the head of the recipe that an old hare will be tough and devoid of flavour.
- "Paunched" and "well kept"Paunching is gutting. "Well kept" means hung, traditionally a few days to a week in cold air to develop flavour and tenderise; a dealer's hare will usually have been hung already, in which case no further ageing is needed or advisable at domestic refrigerator temperatures.
- The blood-washing instructionThis elaborate business of running water only into the shoulder slits while the loins stay wrapped is aimed at the blood that pools inside the shoulders, which is the reason the recipe itself gives. A properly dressed hare from a butcher needs none of it: wipe the cavity dry and move on. The underlying point stands, though, which is that soaking meat in water leaches out flavour.
- Cross-references you do not haveThe stuffing at par. 334 and the trussing at page 38 belong to other parts of the book. Any forcemeat of breadcrumbs, suet or butter, chopped liver, herbs and lemon zest bound with egg suits the dish; truss by drawing the hind legs forward alongside the body and the forelegs back, so the whole animal sits compact.
- Fire to oven"A quick fire, not too fierce" has no oven equivalent in the book; in a modern oven, roughly 425F to set the surface and then about 375F for the bulk of the time is one reasonable reading. In an enclosed oven the milk and dripping basting is still worth doing every ten minutes or so, and a layer of bacon or thin fat over the back does the work the open fire's constant attention used to.
- The frothed crustAlternate dredging with flour and basting with hot fat towards the end of the roasting, as the recipe directs, builds a blistered golden coat. It works only if the fat is genuinely hot each time; tepid dripping makes paste rather than froth.
- TimingAn hour and a quarter to an hour and a half is right for a 5-6 lb hare stuffed and roasted at these heats. Test at the thickest part of the hind leg rather than by the clock, aiming for about 160F; hare pushed well past that goes dry and stringy no matter how much basting it has had.
- Made-gravy and currant jelly"Made-gravy" means a separately built brown gravy, not simply the pan juices: brown the trimmings and forelegs, simmer with stock and aromatics, strain, and finish with the roasting-pan sediment. Red currant jelly on the side is not optional in the period's view of hare, and it does genuinely balance the meat's iron.