Roast loin of hare with a chocolate and redcurrant sauce

Roast loin of hare with a chocolate and redcurrant sauce
Serves 4

Ingredients –

• Vegetable oil for frying
• 2 rib ends of hare, chopped up with bones on to 1in pieces
• ½ onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• ½ stick celery, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, finely chopped
• Dessert spoon tomato puree
• 1 glass of red wine
• 1 sprig of thyme
• 500ml of game stock or fresh dark chicken stock
• 2 good-sized hare saddles
• 25g of redcurrant jelly
• 10g of dark 65 per cent chocolate

Method

1. Fry off the bones in hot vegetable oil to get good colour. Remove bones from pan and in same pan fry off onion and garlic for 5 minutes.

2. Add carrot and celery, cook for another 6 to 8 minutes then add bones and tomato puree. Cook for another five to six minutes then add wine and reduce by ¾.

3. Now add stock and reduce by ¾ then pass through a fine sieve to get rid of bones and vegetables.

4. The sauce should be reduced until it is the consistency of single cream.
Bring sauce to boil. Add redcurrant jelly, stir in and allow to melt.

5. Bring sauce down to just a very slight simmer then put to one side on stove. It should stay hot but not boil or simmer.

6. Heat a frying pan to smoking hot, season the hare loin and seal in the pan all over, then place in the oven at 180°C for 8 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for five minutes but do not cover.

7. Chop chocolate into small pieces and whisk it into the sauce bit by bit.
It will separate at first but as you whisk it, it will emulsify into the sauce.

8. Cut the loins off the saddle and slice. Serve with a chive mash and the sauce poured over the top.