After last week’s hare loin, this post features the hare legs with another group of typical Latvian winter flavors: potato, sauerkraut, and animal fat. The recipe is pretty short, because most of the work has been done during the hare preparation.
The only non-trivial element left is the potato pancakes. I’ve already talked about deruny here, but I’m taking a different approach today, simply slicing the potatoes and relying on the starch and salt to bind them all together.
Finally, if you want to make the dish a little bit healthier but still recognizably Latvian, you could prepare a wine reduction to drizzle on the meat, instead of the fat!
Potato pancakes
Yields 4 servings
12 oz peeled Russet potatoes
canola oil spray
about 1 oz butter
salt
- Using a mandoline, cut the potatoes into 1/32″-thick slices.
- Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat. Spray a little bit of canola oil, and add a small piece of butter. Arrange one fourth of the potato slices into a 6″-diameter disc. You can create several layers in a spiral pattern, seasoning each layer with salt as you go (salt acts as a binder). Cook until browned.
- Add some more butter, flip the pancake, and brown the other side. Reserve.
Confit assembly
2.8 oz drained sauerkraut
1 g (about 3/8 tsp) caraway seeds
hare leg confit (see here)
8 peeled baby carrots
1/2 oz butter
1/2 oz water
salt
potato pancakes
- Mix the sauerkraut and caraway in a bowl, and reserve at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- Pour the contents of the hare leg confit sous-vide pouch(es) into a bowl. Shred the meat between your fingers, keeping large pieces, and discard the bones. Reserve about 9.5 oz meat and 1 oz cooking liquid (ideally the juices, not the fat) for the third part of my hare trio. Transfer the rest of the meat and liquid (juices and fat) into a saucepan, cover, and reheat over very low heat.
- Place the carrots with the butter and water into a small saucepan over medium heat, season with salt, cover with a lid, and cook until tender. Remove the lid and reduce if any liquid remains.
- Reheat the potato pancakes by quickly flipping them in a non-stick pan.
- On each plate, arrange a pancake in the center, top with hare confit and a little bit of cooking liquid, and decorate with sauerkraut and baby carrots. Serve.
