Late in the winter, a friend gifted me a hare. The days were still cold and lean, and so I resolved to cook a warming meal. Down off the shelf came my dusty copy of F. Marian McNeil’s A Scots Kitchen, and I scrolled through the index for Jugged Hare, the classic slow-cooked northern casserole.
I had never eaten hare before, and I was determined not to waste a scrap. I hung it for a week exactly before setting to with preparations. Some say it should hang longer, and there is some snobbery about leaving game for as long as possible. But I wanted a compromise, and I didn’t want to spoil the dish with too strong a flavour. I remembered how to skin and gralloch it from the long-ago days when I used to shoot. I caught a strong gamey guff from the carcase, and for a moment I thought I might not be able to see this through. But the creature had been killed, and it would just have been wrong not to.
Before long I had disposed of fur and feet et cetera and was left with a fresh, clean carcase, as well as the heart, liver and kidneys. Once this was all washed and dried, I watched a video explaining how to butcher it. With a sharp cleaver and a good filleting knife this was easy, and I soon had forequarters, rib rack, sirloins and rear quarters separated out, patted dry, and ready for the marinade.
Is it just me, or does the name “Jugged Hare” sound totally unappealing? It would be so much more appetising if – like beef bourguignon or coq au vin – it had an exotic, European name. So, let’s say this dish is called Lièvre au Vin. I used half a bottle of Argentinian red for the marinade. It should steep overnight or maybe a wee bit longer. I don’t agree with chefs who say you should use very expensive wine for cooking, but I don’t think you should go too cheap either, or the dish will suffer. Strike an appropriate compromise!
The stew is founded on the holy trinity of carrot, onion, and celery. These are fried in butter for a peedie while and then removed from the pan. Then the fore and hind quarters of the hare should be removed from the marinade, dried, and browned in the butter. These then go into the slow cooker with the marinade wine and the vegetables and maybe a handful of mushrooms. Sear the rib rack, sirloins and kidneys and refrigerate to add later towards the end of cooking (or they will disintegrate). Deglaze the frying pan with a bit more wine, swill round, and add this to the slow cooker so as not to lose a drop of flavour. Season and add thyme and crushed juniper berries for aromatic notes, then cook the leg joints all day long on a minimal heat.
While we wait, a very old man once told me an even older tale about a peedie boy in Rousay who was out walking on the hill. He came across a hare lying in a hollow in the grass. The boy lit on the hare, and managed to grab a hold of it, but was not strong enough to kill it. A hare is bigger than you imagine, more like a small deer than a big rabbit. He stretched it around his waist and carried it all the way home to the croft where his mother dispatched it, providing a welcome meal for the family in a hungry time.
Resist the urge to open the lid of the slow cooker, but you will have to eventually. Top up the wine. Add a drop of cognac if you are partial to cognac. Some say you should stir in the blood and the chopped liver at this point, but I baulked at that. And anyway, my stew was rich enough as it was. Add the sirloins and the kidneys. By now, the colour is an incredibly deep, dark, ruddy brown.
Remove the pieces of hare from the sauce and take the meat off the bones. It will have become ultra-tender and will simply fall off. Return the meat to the pot to heat through, and then serve with tatties and green beans, if you like.
One hare fed three of us on a Sunday evening, with enough left over for me to have another plate on Monday. It goes nicely with a glass of the same red wine used for cooking, if there’s any left. The meat was beautiful. Dark but not strong at all, and the gravy was without a doubt the richest and most satisfying I have ever enjoyed.
brisknortherly 