Pâté de Lièvre (Hare Pie)

Ingredients

• 1 hare
• Very fine lardons
• Spiced salt
• Cognac
• Lardons of lean ham
• Fresh fat pork in lardons
• Forcemeat made from the rest of the flesh
• Ordinary pastry
• Butter
• Bardes of pork fat
• A pinch of powdered thyme and bay leaf
• Jelly flavoured with hare fumet

Instructions

1. Bone the saddle and the legs of the hare, setting aside the fillets, the filets mignons and the noix of the legs.
2. Remove the sinews from these pieces, lard them with very fine lardons and season them with spiced salt.
3. Put them to marinate in cognac together with the same proportions of lardons of lean ham and of fresh fat pork.
4. With the rest of the flesh prepare the forcemeat according to the proportions of the formula cited.
5. Butter an oval fluted mould, line it with ordinary pastry and barde it.
6. Garnish it, alternating layers of forcemeat, the larded hare fillets and the lardons.
7. Lay an oval barde of pork fat on the last layer of forcemeat and scatter over it a pinch of powdered thyme and bay leaf.
8. Cover the pâté and bake it in an oven of good moderate heat.
9. After cooling, pour in jelly flavoured with hare fumet.