This decadent hare ragù recipe by chef Giancarlo Morelli is served with rich chickpea flour tagliatelle and a sweet apple sauce for a comforting yet refined dish.
To begin, marinate the hare. Add the wine to a container with the hare, herbs and spices and place in the fridge for 3 days
4 white peppercorns
200g of hare meat, a mixture of leg and saddle, deboned
1l red wine
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 sprigs of marjoram
1 star anise
2 juniper berries
2
To cook the ragù, drain the hare (reserving the marinade) and cut into small cubes. Set aside. Pass the marinade through a fine sieve, discarding the aromatics, and place in a pan. Reduce over a medium-high heat until you are left with 200ml liquid
3
Add a dash of oil to a large pan, place over a high heat and add the hare, searing all over until a deep golden brown colour. Season with salt once browned and remove from the pan
50g of extra virgin olive oil
salt
4
Add another dash of oil to the same pan and add the carrot, celery and onion. Cook until soft but without colour, then return the hare to the pan, along with the picked thyme. Add the spices to a small piece of muslin, tying up to secure
Add the reduced red wine to deglaze, scraping any residue from the bottom of the pan. Add the bag of spices and allow the wine to reduce further. Add enough stock to cover and top up occasionally, allowing to slowly reduce before adding more (you may not need all of the stock)
1l chicken stock
6
While the ragù is cooking, make the pasta. Knead the flours with the egg and egg yolks until a smooth, uniform dough forms. Leave to rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour
To prepare the apple sauce, add the water, sugar and saffron to a pan and bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar has just dissolved. Reduce the heat to low, add the apples and cook gently until cooked through
5g of powdered saffron
2 apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
250g of water
250g of sugar
8
Drain the apples and transfer to a blender with a pinch of salt. Blitz to a very smooth purée, adjusting the consistency with a little of the poaching syrup, if necessary. Set aside
1 pinch of salt
9
Remove the pasta dough from the fridge and pass through a pasta machine to create very thin sheets. Leave to rest on the work surface for about 10 minutes. Cut into tagliatelle and set aside
10
After 3 hours, you should be left with a rich, thick ragù. At this stage, season to taste and stir in the marjoram. Cook the pasta in salted boiling water for 5 minutes, then drain
pepper
1 sprig of marjoram, chopped
11
To serve, add a spoonful of the apple sauce to each plate. Mix the pasta with the ragù until well-incorporated, then form a nest of the pasta and place on each plate. Serve immediately
Giancarlo Morelli’s trailblazing gastronomy emphasises the very Italian tenets of simplicity, balance and great ingredients to create dishes that are far more than the sum of their parts.
