That's How It Happened

I tackled jugged hare tonight, which is to me the quintessential English dish. I "first caught my hare" at the local farmer's market. He was a big brown hare, perhaps 3-4kg in weight pre-skinning. I dug out a few books before tackling the jointing. Strangely neither Fearnley-Whittingstall nor Elizabeth David seems to give directions for dissecting the limbs, and the saddle ("Ask your butcher to separate off the usual parts", says David). The back legs particularly are well attached, and it takes some force to dislocate the hip joints. Acting on a tip from Larousse, and utilising all my surgical skills, I deftly perfomed a combined hepatectomy/cholecystectomy. By this point I was covered in hare's blood, and feeling queasy, so I didn't bother to enter the mediastinum and dig out the heart. I plumped principally for the recipe from Nose To Tail Eating. It involved flouring, browning, and then stewing in red wine for two hours. Unfortunately at the key moment I managed to lock myself out of the house, extending the stewing time by an unnecessary extra two hours. When I finally got back in there was clearly too much meat for one sitting, so I diverted the front legs into a hare terrine. I rustled up the stock/blood/liver/port reduction which forms the sauce, but it was too late. The hare was overcooked. Based on this I give you the formula for calculating kitchen failure:
((Hours spent in kitchen + number of guests invited) X Percentage surface area of kitchen covered in blood and other mess))/ Fraction by which finished article falls short of culinary expectation = Total Failure Factor
Easily among my top 10 greatest foodie disasters.

Tags: juggeedhare, recipe