TRADITIONAL HUNTING RECIPES

That we are gourmet with our food it is well known, and the table in our place is always set with all sorts of delicious appetizers and dishes. In order to be sure that we have pleased our visitors we must have first offered them the best quality and the most quantity of food we can. Cretan Cuisine is rather famous and there are many hunting recipes included. We always keep hares or other kinds of prey that our dogs have caught in our freezer, so we are always ready to please our friends by preparing a hunting recipe. Here, we will set recipes for cooking prey the Cretan way. If you know a recipe, please feel free to send it to us so that we can publish it and enrich not only our page but our table too.  

ROAST HARE - ‘TSIGARISTOS’

In Crete, it is the most popular way to cook the hare and in my opinion, for two reasons: First, because thus you can enjoy the meat’s flavour without using many spices and second, because it is the easiest and fastest way to cook it. To get prepared, we need to cut the hare in small pieces and keep its blood. Then we sprinkle some salt on the meat, depending on our disposal and put it aside for about10 minutes. In a cooking pot we put  olive oil and we thinly slice a big onion which we sauté until it’s lightly browned. Next, we add the hare and continuously turn the sides until it is slightly cooked from all sides. If the hare is old, we will need to add a little water; if it is young it will be cooked in roughly 30 minutes. When we are sure that it has drained enough and it is almost cooked we add a glass of good wine (not sweet) and let the food simmer over gentle heat until its sauce is thick enough and almost black in colour. Then we serve. We can serve with French fries.

HARE STEW

For this recipe we needed an entire hare of 1,5 kilo, cut  in small pieces and 1 kilo of small onions used for stew, peeled but not chopped. We can make a small cut in one side of each onion so that they are cooked better; if we can not find small onions then we can use common ones cut in four pieces each. Initially, we marinade the pieces of the hare in a basin adding a glass of olive oil, salt, pepper, two leaves of laurel, an entire compact piece of cinnamon, 2 tomatoes peeled and cut in small pieces and a glass of wine. This mixture should be left covered in the fridge –if it is summertime- all night, if it’s winter you can leave it out of the fridge. On the next day, we put some olive oil and the mixture with the hare in the cooking pot. We simmer for about 30 minutes and then, we remove the cinnamon and the laurel with a spoon as they may bitter the flavour of the hare. If the hare is old, we may need to cook it more, but we should add wine -not water. When it is almost done, we add the onions and cook until it is ready. We serve with a rusk that will absorb the bitter-sour sauce and with a good bottle of wine.

 
HARE WITH GREEN BEANS

Ingredients: 1 Hare of 1,5 kilo, 500 gr. Green beans, 2 chopped onions , 1 peeled/chopped tomato, 100 gr. olive oil
The hare should be cut in small pieces.  Sauté only with olive oil and add as much salt as you wish, (if needed put water but just a little, turn the sides of the meat so that it does not get burned); cook until it is almost done and then add the green beans with the chopped onion and the tomato. We simmer over gentle heat until it is done and then serve.

HARE WITH POTATOES

Ingredients: 1 Hare of 1,5 kilo, 1 kilo potatoes cut in four pieces, 2 chopped onions, 50 gr. olive oil, salt, pepper.
The hare should be cut in small pieces. Sauté only with olive oil and add as much salt as you wish, (if needed put water but just a little, turn the sides of the meat so that it does not get burned); cook until it’s almost done, then add the potatoes with the onion and the pepper. Now the water should be very little in order for the sauce to be thick. We simmer over gentle heat and then serve.

HARE WITH WALNUTS

Ingredients: 1 Hare of 1,1/2 kilo with its blood, 50-70 gr. olive oil, 2 finely chopped onions, 500gr. Walnuts without the shell, salt.
We put all the ingredients in the saucepan and cook adding only water as much as needed in order for the hare to be cooked and the walnuts to soften. When the sauce has remained and the hare starts to roast then we add a glass of red wine until its alcohol evaporates; then, serve while it’s hot. This is an exceptional way to cook the hare because the walnuts have a certain colouring due on their exterior membrane that gives a dark colour to the meat but which will also add a particular flavour and perfume to the food.

   HARE WITH SPAGHETTI   

   
Ingredients:  Hare of 1 kilo with its blood, 100 gr. olive oil, 5 minced onions, 500gr. walnuts without the shell, salt, pepper and spaghetti. We can prepare a sauce for the spaghetti based on our hare’s meat; we put the fleshy parts of the hare (legs, kidneys, saddle and all the blood) in the saucepan together with the oil and the salt. We let the hare be cooked adding water, if needed, and until the flesh is easily separated from the bones with a fork. After removing the bones from the saucepan we add the minced onions, the pepper and a small glass of wine. When it is cooked, we use it as a sauce for the spaghetti which we have already boiled. Some add more water in the saucepan so as to cook the spaghetti in the sauce with the hare. Then we serve and we add as much Anthotyros (type of white cheese) as we like.

 
HARE WITH Scolymus (TYPE OF HERB)

Ingredients:  Hare of 1,5 kilo, 50 gr. olive oil, 1 kilo Skolymus cut in small pieces and 2 small spring onions, 1 lemon and salt. (Skolymus, for those who do not know, is a plant with spiny leaves and stems of which we keep the fleshy part of the root and remove the thorny parts of the leaves with a glove). The hare is sautéed in small pieces together with the onion and the oil adding as much water as needed, until the hare is almost ready. Then we add the Skolymus parts and we let them be cooked with the hare until the water evaporates; Towards the end, we take some of the food’s hot stock with a spoon, add a tablespoon of flour and we stir while adding some lemon juice until we have a white sauce. We add the white sauce in the saucepan; we mix it and turn off the heat. We wait a little and serve.