Hi Folks, I am an amateur"chef," with a PK grill. I received three roughly five pound frozen "oven ready" hares in error when I placed an order with a wonderful company for steaks, chops, and game birds I've dealt with for years. The hares are not even on the website, since I found out with a call to customer service that they are only for restaurants, not individuals! Go figure. I've never eaten hare, and I have no idea what to do them! Can I tap into someone's expertise please? Thanks so much!
Marc
I actually found a recipe for this in my mom's late 50's copy of the Better Homes and Garden cookbook. Sadly they no longer include that particular recipe!
Well, you're off to a good start - first you gotta catch the hare.
I suspect they are much like wild rabbit which I have never cooked on a grill but I have sautéed a number of them and served them with a mushroom gravy over smashed potatoes. Pretty tasty. They have a fairly delicate flavor so you might want to go a little easy on the seasoning. If there is no one home here on AR with personal experience my suggestion would be a web search of the other cooking sites, especially websites dealing with wild game recipes. To me wild rabbit does not have a strong taste unlike some of the other game meats so a game recipe for commercially raised hare or rabbit could work. Sounds like fun. Good luck.
In my experience it's much like chicken breast. It's lean and very easy to over cook and dry out. I use them in soups and stews. Years ago it was touted as a very heart healthy meat. I've not grilled one for fear I would just ruin it. I'm sure you can find info on the internet that will help with grilling.
I just wanted to say that although rabbit and hare can be cooked in a similar fashion, they are vastly different in flavor. Rabbit has a mild/tame flavor, and hare is very game'y, with a distinct hare flavor. It is very lean meat, so go easy. No overcooking for hours. Most of the time we made a hare stew/casserole at home.
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As others have said, just treat it like lean chicken. Like Henrik said, rabbits and hares (even though closely related) really are different animals with very distinct flavor profiles.
If they're "oven-ready" hares then they're probably young(er) and farm-raised, so they're probably closer to rabbits than wild hares. To be sure, since you have three, perhaps you can cook one to begin with.
The meat is quite lean and the legs can be quite a bit tougher than the saddle/loins, so if they're not very young you will almost surely need to braise the legs. I've treated the legs sort of like boar meat to make a ragu with pappardelle. If the hare is younger, you could use the loins sort of like a lean pork chop. The last time I cooked rabbit was before I had a sous vide circulator but I suspect you could separate the loins, sous vide, then finish with a reverse sear. I think that it's a sturdy tasting meat, so can stand up to flavors like garlic, rosemary, juniper berries, or other strong aromatics, or to curries or even Mexican mole.
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