Time
2 hours 30 minutes + time for the pasta dough for the pappardelle to rest and to marinate the hare
Serves
4
Difficulty
Medium
Ingredients
For the pasta
400g flour
4 eggs
For the sauce
1 hare about 2-2/5kg in weight
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 stick of celery
1 carrot
1 sprig of rosemary
1 bunch of parsley
10 leaves of sage
1 sprig of thyme
1 bay leaf
120ml extra virgin olive oil
1 glass of Chianti riserva or a full-bodied red wine
375ml vinegar
500g canned whole peeled tomatoes
60g parmesan cheese, grated
salt and pepper, to taste
Method
For the pasta
Sieve the flour onto a pastry board, add the eggs and knead until you have a smooth dough. Wrap in clingfilm and let it rest for 30 minutes. Then roll out a thin sheet, and cut it into strips about 20 mm wide for the tagliatelle. Leave them to dry on a floured tray.
For the sauce
Marinate the hare for 24 hours, covered in water and vinegar. When ready to make the sauce, rinse it well under running water. Take out the liver and heart, clean away all the blood and remove the skin. Cut the hare into large pieces and dry on paper towels.
Finely chop the onion, garlic, celery, carrot, parsley, half the sage, and rosemary and sauté gently in the olive oil in a large terra cotta pot with bay leaf and thyme. Then add the heart and liver cut into dice along with the pieces of the hare and let them brown.
Add the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, cover, and cook gently for two hours. Slowly add the wine while stirring the sauce to make sure that it does not stick to the bottom of the pan.
When cooked, remove the bay leaf. Take out the pieces of the hare and remove the bones (this should be easy as the meat will fall from the bones), chop the meat and put it back into the sauce.
To assemble
Cook the pappardelle in plenty of boiling salted water. About 4 minutes from when the water comes back to the boil, drain and dress with the sauce. Garnish with remaining sage leaves and serve.
