Lièvre à la Royale

Serves 8

Preparation time: 1.5 hours
Cooking time: 2 hours 30 mins

Method

Skin and gut the hare over a basin, so that all the blood is collected. Save the liver. Cut the head and bone it completely, taking care not to tear it. Remove the excess meat, about 300g, from the legs.

Remove the nerves from the foie gras. Cut pieces about 3cm from along the length of the lobe. Stuff them with black truffle sticks, season and marinate in a little armagnac for about 1/2 hour. Pass the bacon fat and pork loin through a medium-size chopper. Pass the hare liver, the flesh of the thighs and 200g foie gras through a fine chopper. Mix with the bacon fat and the loin. Add the truffle juice, the rest of the armagnac and the eggs. Adjust the seasoning. Spread out the sausage meat and place the streaky bacon on top, then the hare. Season the inside of the hare, spread it with the stuffing and place pieces of foie gras along the length of the hare. Cover with the rest of the stuffing. Close up the rabbit as you would a turkey, with the streaky bacon and then the sausages. Tie it up like a roast.

In a roasting dish with duck fat, return the bones of the hare and the vegetables and garlic, cut into rough pieces. Once everything is well coloured, add the hare and brown it on all sides. Bring the wine to a boil and flambé. Remove the hare, the vegetables and the bones from the dish and place in a braising pan. Deglaze with a little wine. Pour into the braising pan, add the remaining wine, the white stock, the veal stock and the bouquet garni. Cook in the oven at 140C for 2 hours 30 mins. Once cooked, place the hare on a wire rack, remove the cooking juices, and reduce them by half in a saucepan.

Cook the pasta shells in boiling, salted water. Finely chop the black truffle. Fry the ham and the girolle mushrooms in a little duck fat. Throw in the pasta shells and the black truffle. Pour on the chicken juices and bind with a little parmesan cheese.

At the point of serving, warm the hare in the oven with a little juice. Bring the reduced cooking juices to the boil and add the roughly-cut pieces of foie gras. Let them melt gently, then mix. At the last moment, finish the sauce off with the blood of the hare, without bringing it to the boil. Pass through a sieve and adjust the seasoning, before serving. Cut the hare as you would a roast, in slices. Serve surrounded by the macaroni, and drizzled with sauce.

Ingredients

1 hare
500g streaky bacon
200g sausage meat
70g duck fat

For cooking the hare:
1 celery stick
2 carrots
2 onions
1 bouquet garni
2 garlic cloves
3 litres red wine
1.5 litres veal stock
1 litre white stock

For the stuffing:
300g pork loin
400g bacon fat
800g foie gras
50g black truffle
1dl truffle juice
1dl armagnac
3 eggs
pepper & salt

For the garnish:
400g pasta shells
20g black truffle
50g Basque pork ham sliced in thin strips
1dl chicken juices
50g Basque sheep's cheese or Parmesan

For the sauce:
60g foie gras