[Sca-cooks] OOP: Okay, so Marx Rumpolt is rolling in his grave...

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Hullo, the list!

I made an interesting discovery last night; my freezer yielded up 
about three pounds of frozen ground-meat-type stuff which proved, on 
closer inspection, to be filling for the Marx Rumpolt hare sausage 
recipe, only made with rabbit. Basically hare (in this case rabbit), 
haunch meat recommended, with some fatty pork to moisten it, salt and 
pepper, and the optional garlic Rumpolt recommends when serving to 
Poles, Hungarians, and other Slavic types, all finely chopped.

I had made these sausages, run out of casings with about 1.5 quarts 
of filling left, with more filling than we needed to do the job, so 
put the remainder in my freezer, made a note of my acquisition to 
remind me not to be reimbursed for food I was eating myself, and 
forgot about the meat in my freezer for about a year.

Cut to last night, with self rummaging through freezer looking for 
something to use to make pasta sauce for ravening hordes... well, 
okay, party of three.

After partially defrosting the mass in the microwave enough to cut 
off about a pound, I finished defrosting that pound of the stuff and 
used it to make a sort of Lydia-Bastianich-inspired Trieste-style 
game ragu. As best as I can recall, I used:

~ 1 lb. of the Rumpolt rabbit sausage mixture
1/2 bottle of Italian red wine, sorta chianti-ish
1 large can (28 ounces???) chopped plum tomatoes
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 rib celery, finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, sliced
~ 1 tsp chopped, fresh oregano (dried would work fine)
1 Tbs chopped parsley
salt (sausage was peppery, no none added)
1 Tbs olive oil

Basically this was made like a fairly ordinary bolognese-type ragu, 
but with a little more wine than I believe is typical.

Sweated the vegetables in the oil until tender, then added the meat 
and browned and crumbled it (the Trieste game ragu usually involves 
whole chunks of rabbit, duck, or whatever game you use, but this is 
what I had), deglazed with wine, added the tomatoes and oregano, 
simmered till the meat was tender and the wine and tomatoes melded to 
a more or less homogenous saucy consistency. Adjusted seasonings and 
added parsley at the end.

At some point I decided the texture was wrong, and snuck in a 
half-teaspoon of moistened, unflavored gelatin, to add a little of 
that stew consistency that would have come from cooking the meat on 
the bone. It melted into the sauce and gave it just that little extra 
bit of syrupy richness you find in a good stock or stew.

Served over fettucine; the classic Italian version is often served 
with papardelle, a broad, thin egg noodle something like triple-wide 
fettucine or tagliatelle. And probably medieval in origin, without 
the tomatoes; see English recipes for Hares in Papdele.

Surprisingly good stuff...

Adamantius