No. 2080

Young Hares' Paupiettes with Stuffed Olives

Paupiettes de Levrauts aux Olives Farcies

Take the fillets and minion fillets from two young hares, suppress the nerves and separate them lengthwise in two; flatten all the pieces and then cut them up into twelve bands or strips an inch and a half wide by two and a half long; season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Pass twice through the chopping machine (Fig. 47) a pound of the lean meats, cut from the legs and shoulders of the hare with as much fresh fat pork; when the whole is very fine add to it some cooked fine herbs (No. 385), two ounces of bread crumbs, one egg, salt and pepper. Spread a layer of this hash on each strip, roll them over on themselves and place in buttered paupiette rings. Make a fumet (No. 397) with the carcasses and fragments moistening it with white wine; reduce some espagnole sauce (No. 414) with this fumet, despumate it free of all fat and scum that arises to the surface. Cook the paupiettes in a sautoir lined with bards of fat pork, and moisten with white wine mirepoix stock (No. 419); when done, drain off and strain the stock, reduce it with the espagnole and fumet. Stuff some Spanish olives with anchovies, heat them in a little gravy (No. 404); dress the paupiettes in a circle, fill the center with the stuffed olives and place a channeled mushroom (No. 118) on each paupiette; cover with a part of the sauce, serving the rest in a sauce-boat.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stockpots already going; the cross-references to espagnole, fumet and mirepoix stock are the bulk of the work. The hinge is heat control: hare loin is very lean and goes dry and grainy the moment the braise simmers hard.

Levraut means a young hareA leveret is a hare under about a year old, sold in Europe but rare in American markets. Two of them yield perhaps 1 lb of loin and tenderloin; two whole domestic rabbits, or four rabbit saddles, give roughly the same quantity and cook the same way.
Minion filletsThe filets mignons here are the small tenderloins lying under the saddle along the spine, not steak. They are slim and should be flattened only lightly or they tear.
The twelve stripsAn inch and a half by two and a half inches, so about 4 x 6 cm each, pounded thin between plastic wrap. Twelve paupiettes serves four to six as a main course.
Paupiette ringsButtered metal rings that hold the rolls upright while they braise. Rings of foil, or simply tying each roll with kitchen twine and packing them snugly in the pan, does the same job.
Cooked fine herbsRanhofer's No. 385 is a cooked mixture of finely chopped mushrooms, onion or shallot and parsley reduced in butter and wine, close to a dry duxelles. A couple of tablespoons suits this batch, which comes to roughly two pounds once the equal weight of fat pork is added.
The forcemeatEqual weights of lean hare and fresh fat pork, twice ground. Keep meat, fat and grinder parts refrigerator-cold or the fat smears and the stuffing turns pasty; back fat or fatty pork shoulder both work.
Sauce shortcutEspagnole is a brown roux-thickened veal stock; the fumet is a concentrated stock from the hare bones with white wine. A well-reduced brown game or veal stock, lightly thickened, gives the same result without two days of preparation. "Despumate" simply means to skim the fat and scum as it simmers.
Bards and braisingLine the sautoir with thin sheets of fat pork or thick-cut bacon and moisten with the white wine mirepoix stock, holding the liquid at a bare tremble. Ranhofer gives no temperature or timing, only 'when done'; a rolling simmer will squeeze the lean loin dry.
Olives and mushroomsSpanish olives stuffed with anchovy are sold ready-made and serve well enough here; warm them gently in a little gravy, as the recipe directs, rather than boiling them. A "channeled" mushroom is a cap fluted with a paring knife and cooked white in butter, lemon and water.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is a good example of how the book works: almost nothing stands alone, and a single dish sends the cook off to half a dozen numbered preparations elsewhere in the volume. Hare was a staple of the nineteenth-century American game trade, hung in market stalls alongside venison and wildfowl, and a Delmonico's kitchen could count on receiving young ones in season. Paupiette is the classic French term for a thin slice of meat spread with forcemeat and rolled, a technique generally traced back through French cookery of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the point of it here is practical, since the loin of a young hare is small and the forcemeat made from the tougher legs and shoulders both extends it and keeps it moist. The anchovy-stuffed Spanish olives are a period touch, salt and sharpness set against rich game and a dark reduced sauce, and they place the dish squarely in the era when a restaurant course was expected to arrive dressed in a circle with a garnish in the middle.