Pappardelle with Hare

Pappardelle with hare sauce is a typical dish of Tuscan and Italian cuisine in general, where game meat is often used to create recipes with intense and rustic flavors. Here’s how to prepare this dish.

Ingredients

• 400 g of pappardelle
• 1 hare (or about 600 g of cleaned hare meat)
• 1 onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 stick of celery
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Fresh rosemary to taste
• Bay leaf to taste
• 1 glass of red wine
• 500 ml of tomato passata or peeled tomatoes
• Extra virgin olive oil to taste
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Meat or vegetable broth as needed (optional)

Preparation

1. Begin by preparing the hare. If you have a whole hare, you will first need to eviscerate and clean it. Then marinate the hare meat with red wine, garlic, rosemary, and bay leaf for several hours, if possible overnight.
2. Finely chop the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic. Heat some oil in a casserole and add the mix of chopped vegetables, letting them sauté until they become soft.
3. Remove the hare meat from the marinade (saving the wine) and brown it with the vegetables. Add the rosemary and bay leaf used for the marinade. Allow the meat to evenly brown.
4. Deglaze with the red wine from the marinade and let the alcohol evaporate.
5. Add the tomato passata and cover the hare meat. If necessary, add meat or vegetable broth to keep the sauce moist during cooking.
6. Cook on low heat for about 2-3 hours, until the meat softens and the sauce reduces and concentrates. If the meat is not tender after 2 hours, continue cooking, adding broth if necessary.
7. Once the hare is cooked and the meat is tender, debone and shred it before returning it to the sauce.
8. Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pappardelle until al dente.
9. Drain the pasta and mix it with the hare sauce, letting it flavor for a minute or two.
10. Serve the pappardelle well dressed with the hare sauce and, if liked, a sprinkle of grated cheese.

Curiosity

Hare sauce is one of the many examples of how Italian cuisine knows best to enhance game meats, ingredients that in the past were often the basis of the diet in rural areas, especially in Tuscany and other central regions of Italy where game was plentiful. Pappardelle, with their width, are perfectly suited to catch the rich and hearty hare sauce.