Shot a nice young male hare last friday. Lots of meat, good nick. Dressed and skinned, I trimmed and sectioned, forelegs and shoulders x2, rear leg and haunch x2, loins intact. Placed in stainless bowl, liberally salted with ordinary kitchen salt, covered with clean T-towel in fridge for 2 days. Rinsed meat under cold tap thoroughly, placed in large pot and added chunked carrot, quartered large brown onion, tablespoon whole black pepper corns, sprigs of fresh rosemary, sage, fresh green bay leaves x 4 and handful of fresh thyme - all herbs from the garden. Covered with cold water, quite a lot, brought to gentle boil then simmered until meat could easily be stripped from bones which were discarded. Reserved meat, strained stock through colander to remove aromatics, herbs etc, returned to large pot and at full rolling boil reduced to 500ml. Hard put not to eat it all at this stage. Meat was delicious. Took 4 skinned boneless chicken thighs, fat left on, dressed with dried Italian herb mix, seasoned with salt and fresh cracked black pepper, fried in a little hot olive oil, plus a tblsp of butter until both sides browned, add 1 large red capsicum deseeded and thin sliced, a cup of Pinot Gris, cover and cook on medium heat until meat tender and liquid reduced to oil, butter and chicken fat. Do not burn/blacken. Capsicum will be soft/jammy. Rough chop chicken into large bite sizes, reserve with capsicum. Add hare meat, rough chopped, in batches, to oil/fat remaining in chicken fry pan and toss to lightly fry/brown adding more olive oil as required. Add batches of fried hare meat to chicken meat. When done deglaze pan with a little pinot gris and add to meats. In a large Dutch Oven/Crueset add 2 tblsp Olive oil, 1 tblsp butter, 3 medium rough chopped red onion, 6 -8 inches of leek stem from root end washed and thin sliced, 4-5 cloves fresh garlic chopped, 1 large carrot fine chopped and saute' over medium heat taking care not to brown. When onion soft and clear, add meats, capsicum and reduced stock plus one heaped tsp of ground cumin, 2 heaped tsp of ground coriander. A little chili may also be added if desired but i didn't as these flavours are delicate and easily overwhelmed. Mix contents and heat gently to combine stirring occasionally for 10 min. Add 1 and 1/2 cup each of frozen peas and corn kernels. mix in thoroughly. In a bowl add 4 tblsp plain white flour. slowly add pinot gris to make first a dough, then a paste then a slurry. add at least half a 750ml bottle of wine at this stage. some lumps don't hurt but object is to have few to none. Stir slurry into meat and veges. Maintain on gentle medium heat and add remainder of bottle of wine to mix, stirring gently. taste and season. You should finish up with a thick mixture that is not runny but is still easy to stir. This is now basically a pie filling. I topped the mix with hot rough mashed Agria potatoes, skin on. Mash with butter and milk, and season with cracked back pepper. Consistency of mash should be firm not runny and rough not smooth. I mash with a large meat fork just breaking the potato up and stirring a bit to combine milk and butter. You don't want the potato too wet. Spread potato on top of the meat mix, sprinkle a handful of coarse grated tasty cheddar on top and bake in pre-heated oven at 150 for 20 min. Then turn top grill on to high, open oven door and brown the cheese and potato top. Supervise this closely. Serve to table in the Creuset together with your salad, coleslaw, side breads of choice. Makes a LARGE feed for family/guests. More chicken makes it go further. Using the chicken adds enough fat to convey flavours as hare meat is very lean. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did if you try it. Cheers
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