Jugged Hare
by Cab DavidsonIngredients
1 large brown hare (skinned, with liver, heart, kidneys and blood saved)
4 oz fatty bacon, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 large carrot, peeked and chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped fine
1 tablespoon of plain flour
1 oz butter
1 bottle of good red wine (elderberry or a chewy Glantrian red)
Sprigs of thyme, chervil, parsley and rosemary
A good half pound of mushrooms (may buns, penny buns and sticky buns are good, depending on time of year)
3 cloves of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Method
Joint the hare, cutting the saddle in to four of five pieces, and put it into your best pottery cooking vessel. Crush the garlic, chop the herbs, mix with salt and pepper, the olive oil and the wine. Add this to the hare, cover tightly and leave it for several hours to marinade.
After this, warm the butter in a skillet, lift out and scrape the hare clean of its marinade, which should be saved in the pot. Coat the hare with flour, and fry until golden before removing and placing it back in the earthenware pot. Now in the sake skillet fry your bacon, carrot, onion, and celery, along with the heart, liver and kidneys of the hare, again chopped fine, and when stating to brown add that back to the pot with the hare.
Add the mushrooms, crush the garlic and add that too, and make sure that the hare is at least mostly covered with wine. Now cover it, leave on a warm fire (for those with modern ovens, that's equivalent to a medium oven) for three hours, checking and turning the meat occasionally.
When it is tender, place the blood in a cold pan, and add a small amount of the warm sauce. Mix rapidly, using the sauce to warm the blood with care, to prevent curdling. Add the rest of the sauce, ladle full at a time, and warm until it is just starting to steam. Do not boil it at this point. Return the sauce to the pot with the hare, check seasoning, and serve at once with fine bread, roasted vegetables and kale.
Megs comments
This is always a favourite dish through the autumn months in Magan castle, and indeed it is popular across Norwold. Up in the highlands a different species, the mountain hare, is preferred. While economical (if a peasant can procure a hare for a few coppers or perhaps trade with a poacher) the quality of the dish can rest upon the quality of other ingredients, particularly the choice of wine, and therefore this dish can grace the very highest of tables (where removing the meat, once cooked, from the bone, may be preferred).
Poorer peasants who lack a good, sealed clay pot to cook in make do with the most menial vessels, often using a jug sealed with paste, hence the rather base name of this princely dish.