Snowshoe Hare
By Kevin Kossowan, BCom Director | Story Chaser Productions Inc., | Creator, two-time James Beard Foundation Award Nominee From The Wild | Co-Creator of Wild Harvest, coming to PBS this fall, Edmonton, Alberta.
“Reflecting time and place. If you add ‘connection’ into that dish, there’s really little else I’m interested in when it comes to great food. Of course balance, doneness, and so on matter, but once those rudiments are handled, it really boils down to connection to ingredient.
We were recently in our boreal bushcamp filming From The Wild S7, and what nature had in abundance was rabbits. Snowshoe hare, to be precise. More than I’d ever seen in my life, so they immediately became a staple part of our menu in camp. One of the hunters in camp was John Schneider, an organic heritage grains farmer, who proclaimed that he’d never had rabbit that he’d liked. Challenge accepted.
The hare was cleaned, and hung whole over the chimney from the wood stove in the tent to pick up some smoke. That same stove had a pot on it with water with a mix of botanicals we’d foraged for tea the day before: raspberry leaves, fireweed, willow tips. The rabbit then went into this pot until tender enough to pull apart by hand.
The rest was simply cheating and playing to crowd pleasing flavours: heavy cream, garlic, viognier, mustard, and salt. We had some gleaned potatoes, a few foraged salad greens, and thus convinced John that rabbit could be delicious.
Extract the time and place and you lose the smoke, the stock aromatics, the meat, the salad green garnish, and the soul of the dish quickly disappears. The magic in cookery are those layers of connectivity.”
Ingredients
1 snowshoe hare
Small handful each: raspberry leaf, willow twig, fireweed
2 potatoes (waxy work better here)
1/2 onion
2 tbsp butter
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup white wine
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp grainy mustard
Small handful of dandelion greens
A basic vinaigrette
RECIPE
Heat a pot of water, enough to cover the hare, to just under a simmer - and drop in the raspberry leaf, willow twig, and fireweed. While that’s infusing, clean the hare well, and smoke it lightly for 15-20 minutes. Drop the hare into the stock and let it poach until you can pull it apart easily with your hands, roughly an hour, but will depend on the rabbit and your water temperature.
Boil the potatoes whole until done through. Then set them aside to cool.
While things are cooking, fetch some wild greens. Assemble a simple vinaigrette of oil, acid, salt. The acid in the vinaigrette will help balance the cream sauce of the dish, so err on the side of acid when balancing your vinaigrette.
Prepare the sauce: mince the onion and add it to a pan with the butter. Once cooked through, add the garlic. Add the wine, cook for a minute or so, then add the mustard and heavy cream.
Pull the hare meat off the bone, cube the potato, and add it to the sauce. Season with salt to taste, and plate it.
Toss the greens in your vinaigrette, and place them on top.
Pair it with the wine in the dish, and some exquisite company, preferably outside.