Recipe for Lepores
(Hare in a Sweet Sauce)
by Anthimus, On Foods
Yeah, go ahead and click here to buy this book!
Roman Cookery: Ancient Recipes for Modern Kitchens.
Yes, this book has a new cover, but I like this one better. Blah, I am so horrible.
This is a characteristicly Romans sauce that could have stepped from the pages of Apicius. Hot and spicy, it conjures up echoes of Indian cooking. Wild rabbit has a superior flavor and texture to its farm cousin and if possible should be used for this recipe.
Original recipe: If they are young, hares too may be eaten, in a sweet sauce with peper, a little cumin and ginger, costmary and spikenard or bay leaves.
Translation:
Ingredients
- 1 hare or wild rabbit
- 2 tsp peppercorns
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 3 or 4 leaves
- 1 bay leaf
- ¼ litre/½ pint sweet white wine
- Olive oil
- Sea salt
Preparation
- *note: You need the sweetest dessert wine you can find to give this dish the sweet and sour flavor of which Romans were so fond. If you reduce the peppercorns and cumin seeds to a fine powder in a coffee grinder you will enjoy the finer flavor, but cumin and curry powder form is perfectly acceptable.
- Finely chop the costmary leaves; if you cannot find costmary, you can use mint.
- Mix the pepper, cumin, ginger and bay leaf with the wine, season with salt.
- Put the hare or rabbit in a pyrex casserole dish and pour over the marinade.
- Cover and leave to marinate overnight or for 12 hours.
- Remove the hare or rabbit from the juice and dry with a paper towel.
- Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan and brown the meat all over to seal in the flavour.
- Return to the casserole dish, spoon the sauce over the hare or rabbit and roast in a pre-heated oven at 180°c/350°f/Gas mark 4 for 1½ hours
