Name: Roast Fillets of Hare Wrapped in Ham, with Port and Walnuts
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: Sprig of thyme; 300 ml (½ pint) Chicken or Game Stock or water; 4 slices of Parma or Bayonne ham; ½ teaspoon pink peppercorns or 6 black peppercorns, lightly crushed; Salt and pepper; Few juniper berries, crushed; 1 tablespoon red-wine vinegar, preferably Cabernet Sauvignon; 1 carrot, chopped; 2 celery sticks, chopped; 2 saddles of hare, filleted, boned and bones chopped; 1 bay leaf; Chopped saddle bones; Walnut oil (or cooking oil); 1 teaspoon redcurrant jelly; 1 tablespoon plain flour; 25 g (1 oz) walnuts, chopped; 120 ml (4 fl oz) port; 12 walnut halves, to garnish; 1 onion, chopped

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

New British Classics

By Gary Rhodes

Published 1999

About

The hare is native to Britain, the one animal that escaped the stringent game laws passed throughout the centuries. A poacher – or a man trying to feed his starving family – could be beheaded or, later, transported, for taking a deer or pheasant, but the hare was always available. Hare as a meat was slightly looked down on by the middle and upper classes, as it was a food of the poor.

A hare is often mistaken for a rabbit. Hare is larger, though, and has two main features that immed