TO COOK HARE SOUP
It must be understood that hare meat is made much tastier when cooked with the blood, as it draws out the flavor of the meat and makes it less gritty on the tongue. It is also a fact that fresh game should be cooked soon after acquiring. In the summer, hare must be cooked within a day if kept in a chill place or set in ice. If it is winter, keep the meat in a cool cellar at all times; it will remain edible for at most two days. Do not attempt to cook hare if the meat has darkened or the fat too yellowed.
After cleaning your hare, flay the meat into thin strips (a finger wide each) about as long as a common dessert spoon, then spread them across the bottom of any well-tinned pot. Using cool water, cover the hare and allow it to boil over a well-kept fire with red coals. Do not let it boil longer than an hour unless tasteless soup is what you desire. Skim the top for excess oils and disrupt the water as little as possible. When the hare is softened (but not tearing) continue to add a single cup of cold water to the pot every fifteen minutes, which will bring oil and impurities out of the hare to the water's surface. Continue to skim without stirring and re-cover the pot when done, as this keeps the flavor inside the meat.
While waiting, pour the hare blood into a separate pot of warm water set over red coals. Do not let the water boil or the blood will curdle and spoil. Skin and chop a whole onion, a head of celery, and the guts of a cabbage and add them to the blood, changing out coals as necessary and adding cool water till your pot is half full. After thirty minutes, strain the vegetables from the blood and add them to your soup. If desired, warm hare blood can be served in a boat dish alongside hare soup, though this is loved by few and requires four more hours of cooking to extract the true flavor from the hare blood.
Serve the finished hare soup with a peck of salt and pepper. While acceptable, adding cloves to hare meat alone is hardly necessary as the blood offers more vibrant flavor with less purchase.
Hare soup is best suited for families as game is much less desirable for dinner parties. Two hares do not feed more than four guests even with the addition of soup. The heart of a hare can be cooked using the same principals stated above, skimming being of greatest necessity when purifying the meat of the heart. When properly cooked, hare heart can be served with roasted peppers and should never be served after soup is on to the table.
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