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hare_assassin
04-29-2013, 07:39 AM
Hello all,

First post here, I figured I would offer up this recipe for snowshoe hare. I have made it a dozen or so times for my family this winter and we always love it. Made up a huge batch of it for a party as well, and it was a hit.

Ingredients:

- 1 snowshoe hare (or other rabbit) - deboned and cut into 1/2" pieces
- around 500 grams of linguini or other pasta of your choice
- 2 bunches of fresh basil,
- 1/2 package (about 8-10) sun dried tomatoes
- 4 or 5 cloves of garlic
- 4 tablespoons of pine nuts (roasted)
- parmesan cheese (about 1/4 cup, or more, to taste)
- olive oil
- flour
- salt and pepper

Prep:

- If your sun dried tomatoes are dry in the package, follow the package directions to reconstitute them with boiling water
- If the pine nuts are not roasted, roast them in a pan in the oven or on the stove top
- If the hare is not deboned, debone it. I always debone the hare before freezing which makes it much easier to cook with later. See my video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=620Jr024ICk

Steps:

1. Finely chop the basil, (reconstituted) sun-dried tomatoes, garlic (you can use a press), and roasted pine nuts. You can throw it all in a food processor, but I don't bother because I hate washing the damn things.

2. Put the above ingredients in a small sauce pot/pan and add a reasonable amount of salt and pepper, then pour about 1/4 cup or so of olive oil (use your judgement) and then stir it up and place it on the stove at very low heat. You don't really want to "cook" this mixture, just let it get really warm to slightly hot. If it starts to boil, it is too hot and the basil will turn an ugly dark green colour. Let this sit on the heat while you do the rest...

3. Start boiling the water for the pasta.

4. Put some cooking oil in a skillet or large pan and start heating it up.

5. Put some flour on a plate and season it to taste with salt and pepper, then coat the hare pieces with the seasoned flour.

6. Fry the hare at medium-high, stirring constantly. Add more oil as needed. I tend to fry it till it is just fully cooked, then remove it from the pan. If you leave it too long it can get pretty firm, however you don't want it under-cooked either.

7. Boil the pasta as per package instructions.

8. When the pasta is done, strain it and dump it into a large serving bowl, then immediately dump in the hare, the pesto sauce and about 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese and toss it all together really well.

Serve immediately, with more parmesan on the side. I always have sea salt and a pepper grinder handy, too. Any salad goes with this, but we've had it with a side of steamed veggies, etc.

Another variation I have tried is to fry up some sweet onion and bell peppers in the skillet after afrying the hare, and then throw them into the mix. It was good, but it definitely was a departure from the whole "pesto' thing.

Enjoy!

tomahawk
04-29-2013, 04:14 PM
That sounds good! Would work pretty well with any game, might just give it a try! And i like the idea of the homemade Pesto! Welcome!

hare_assassin
04-29-2013, 05:36 PM
Thanks for the welcome!

Yes, the first time I made this, I used grouse. It was delicious. I'm just much better at killing hare (so far) and hare recipes are harder to find, so I figured I'd post it as a hare recipe.

It might be ok with venison, but I have better recipes for that. ;)

My other favourite hare recipe is more involved than this one. I'll try to find the time to post it sometime soon...

Glenny
04-29-2013, 05:43 PM
Great first post. Yummy.

snow
03-13-2014, 10:03 PM
I am so hopeful for some hares this coming weekend :-) The recipe looks awesome!

hare_assassin
03-14-2014, 09:44 AM
I am so hopeful for some hares this coming weekend :-) The recipe looks awesome!

To be honest, we enjoy the above recipe more with grouse. Confirmed a few times now.

Don't get me wrong, it is good with hare, but I have since found better recipes for hare, such as the one I PMed you... http://americanfood.about.com/od/gameandothermeats/r/Braised_Rabbit.htm

That one really does make hare into a top notch main course. Hare is so much more tender when braised than fried.

If I were to use hare again in the recipe posted above, I would use back straps (from multiple hares) exclusively.