Oct 17 2008
French Hare Stew
My husband came home with a hare from the local farmers’ market a couple of weeks ago (thankfully it wasn’t live and had already been skinned etc!), which got put into the freezer while we decided what to do with it. I found a lovely recipe for ‘Civet de Lievre’ in ‘French Regional Cooking’ by Anne Willan of L’Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne in Paris. The book is out of print but I recently tracked down a copy on Abebooks and second hand copies are available from Amazon sellers.
You can see what the finished product looked like, I can say it was really tasty and actually quite healthy. There’s practically no fat on game, but the other side of the coin is that it can be a bit dry. Not only did it feed us a really good meal but with all the leftovers, I reckon we could have fed 5 people, and all for not much more than a fiver!
For those of you wanting to try something a bit different, here’s the recipe for you:
2kg hare (with blood)
250g lean bacon cut into lardons
1 tbsp oil
2 onions quartered
45g flour
750ml bottle red wine
600ml broth (I used a beef oxo cube!)
1 clove garlic crushed
bouquet garni
salt & pepper
1/2 tsp ground allspice
45g butter
24 baby onions
250g mushrooms
80ml blood from the hare
1tbsp chopped parsley
12 triangular croutes, fried in oil or butter or toasted
Cut the hare into 12-13 pieces, separate the legs from the loin part and cut each leg diagonally in two. Cut the loin in 4 or 5 pieces. Cut the rib section in 2 pieces and the shoulder section in half with one foreleg in each section (I admit, we just cut it up!)
If you prefer to cook the hare in the oven rather than on top of the stove, set the temperature to 160 centigrate / 320 fahrenheit.
Heat the oil in a large sauté pan and fry the bacon until the fat runs. Add the onion quarters and cook over a low fire until they begin to brown. Remove the bacon and onions and drain off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat. Add the pieces of hare to the pan and cook over a high fire to brown them lightly on all sides (if necessary brown them in 2 batches). Sprinkle the flour over the hare, stir to mix and cook until brown. Add the wine and boil for 2-3 minutes stirring, then add the broth, garlic, bouquet garni, salt, pepper & allspice. Replace the bacon and onions. Cover, bring to a boil and simmer very gently on top of the stove or cook in the oven for 1 hour or until the hare is very tender.
Meanwhile, heat the butter in a frying pan, add the baby onions, season them and sauté for 5-10 mins or until brown and just tender. Remove them, add the mushrooms and sauté also until tender. Combine the mushrooms and onions and reserve.
When the hare is tender, transfer it with the bacon to another pan, add the reserved onions and mushrooms and keep warm while finishing the sauce.
Strain the sauce into a pot and skim off any fat from the surface. To thicken it with blood, bring the sauce to a boil, remove from the heat and whisk it into the blood. Strain the sauce over the hare pieces and heat very gently, shaking the pan constantly until the sauce just thickens slightly; don’t let it boil or the sauce will separate. If not using blood, boil the sauce stirring often until thick enough to coat a spoon and strain it over the hare. Taste the sauce for seasoning. Transfer the hare to a deep serving dish, sprinkle with parsley and arrange the croutes around the edge.
I admit that we didn’t do the blood bit, so rather than being a true ‘civet’, the dish was a simple ‘ragout’!
Hares now breed throughout the year, probably owing to global warming, so the hare used in your recipe may have left orphaned young to die of starvation.
It also worth noting that around 20,000 hares are injured by shooting annually and left to an uncertain fate. I have witnessed such injured hares crying like human babies.
In these days where binoculars, cameras and video cameras are available to all there are far better ways to enjoy hares than to eat them. This too is consistent with the values of a modern, civilised society.
You may be interested to know that my father and grandfather were keen shooting men, but I am eternally grateful I did not follow in their footsteps.
Yours sincerely,
Rodney Hale
Chairman - Hare Preservation Trust
Referring to your: ‘thankfully it wasn’t live and had already been skinned etc!’ comment and the fact that you reckon you can feed a whole family with a fiver with this ‘healthy’ recipe, it is a bit sad that all you see is the practical side of things when a beautiful wild animal was killed, almost certainly leaving a family behind, skinned and sold for profit to end up in your plate. There are lots of ways you can enjoy hares (as Rodney Hale said in his comment) and there are lots of ways you can enjoy France. Please think about the message you are giving out, it doesn’t show any respect or compassion for wildlife. Not all French recipes and ways of life are good to copy and some of them are best ignored!… I am French by the way!
I, too, feel sad and appalled that in these times when there is so much information available about conservation and protecting endangered species, that anyone should want actively to encourage and promote the senseless killing of a beautiful wild creature, which already has a hard time surviving, for the gratification of human appetite - there are many other more creative and less cruel ways (and better for biodiversity and conservation) in which to satisfy the human need to hunt and enjoy food. As Isabelle Rineau and Rodney Hale have both commented above, please think about the message you are giving out and reconsider your position on this issue.
I agree with Rodney, shame on you.
Needless to say I agree with everything that’s been said so far - I think hares are such beautiful animals with very little protection (unlike most mammals) in many countries including our own. Your recipe sounds lovely but it would taste just as delicious using rabbit - not an animal that is in danger of becoming rare or even extinct anywhere in western Europe! I do eat rabbit quite a lot although “farmed” rabbit is easier to eat with less sinew than wild rabbit. Either way it’s still a cheap meat and will give you just as much eating and cooking pleasure as a hare. PLEASE think again before killing, cooking or eating hare. Thank you.
I too agree with all the previous comments. The idea of eating these beautiful creatures is repellent.
I was appalled to read this, we have hares on our land and they are such a pleasure to watch. Hares are now a sight very rarely seen, the fact that someone could eat one is totally repellent to me and many other people, please do NOT eat Hares
Some people get all upset about wild animals being eaten whilst they happily consume battery produced (and all the sins that lie therein) chicken, beef, pork etc. Give me a wild free range bird or rabbit, swiftly and skillfuly shot, that has lived free from the tortures of a battery or intensive farm.
Hares are sacred to some of us, me included, so we don’t eat them, it’s a personal decision but putting spiritual convictions to one side hopefully an awareness of the Hares breeding patterns and struggling population would prohibit folk from eating them too? with a ‘lets give the poor things a chance’ attitude. Rather than making emotionally fuelled remarks, maybe sharing facts about the Hares situation and spreading awareness will allow people’s own conscience to do the rest? One might argue some people don’t have a conscience and will eat hare anyway, well, you can’t win them all… none of us is perfect… upsetting as that fact is!
Like Rodney and all the others I too am utterly appalled by what I read. Hares are such beautiful and increasingly rare animals and it is so sad to think what this message gives out to other people. If nothing else perhaps at least show some sensitivity for the majority who do not share your ignorance and naivety.
Sorry, I know I won’t be trying your recipe. Like so many of the previous comment leavers I prefer to watch and photograph hares doing what they do best. Living.
I am all for people getting away from the farmed and often battery meat sold in supermarkets and opting for wild and free range food, but you have to think about what you eat and when. As Rodney said, the liklihood of ‘your’ hare leaving leverets to starve is very high because they breed all year round and there isn’t a close season on them.
They really are amazing creatures and so wonderful to watch. There are also fewer and fewer of them - especially in the UK even in parts where they appear to be quite abundant. So, let’s leave these magical and very mysterious creatures out of the cooking pot and in the fields where, with help and protection, they can thrive.
There is an old, and to some, revered tradition, that to kill and eat a hare is akin to murdering and consuming one’s own grandmother.
Bizarre? Perhaps, but nonetheless worth researching and giving muchearnest consideration. If you must eat meat, choose something else. The hare is sacred!
A few facts in reply to Kathy. In late Victorian times there were around 4 million brown hares in Britain, but they have since suffered at least an 80% decline. In the mid 1990s a government Species Action Plan was set up, having among its objectives a doubling of the national population by the year 2010. But research by the Tracking Mammals Partnership shows the population has only remained stable since 1995, so the SAP is way off target.
Yet, incredibly, between 200,000 and 300,000 hares are shot annually and because (as Becky says) they have no close season at least 37,000 orphaned leverets are left to die of starvation. Of those shot between 25% and 30% are not killed outright, but are retrieved and despatched. A further 10% ( a conservative 20,000 as mentioned in my previous post) are wounded and escape to an uncertain fate.
Hare shooting is very much a follow-on from pheasant shooting when it closes on 1 February. Wealthy French, Germans and Italians think nothing of coming over here and spending £3,000 to shoot our hares for fun. They also come over to Scotland to shoot our mountain hares.
Regards,
Rodney
I would like to add my voice to those above that are appalled at such a recipe being put online.
Hares, to me, are magical, sacred, a joy to watch and do not receive the protection they deserve. There are so many alternative foods to eat - why choose such a creature? PLEASE do not eat hare or shoot/course them for the “sport” of it.
I apologise to those that I have upset by trying out hare, bought from a local farmers market. I think Kathy’s comments were the most constructive in that I don’t eat battery farmed meat and am always particularly careful about where I source meat from. Spreading the word about the plight of the hare would be more useful than just attacking those who try it out!