Pappardelle with hare, red wine & cacao regù

The trigger for this recipe is the typically northern Italian way of braising hare (lepre) in salmi. They put a hare into a wine marinade with onions, celery, juniper berries and and rosemary, to soften the flavour of the strong-tasting meat as well as tenderising it. Then the important thing is to let the hare cook very slowly. Then, they add some of the cacao into the sauce, and some over the hare at the last minute. As the cacao falls onto the hot serving plates, there’s an explosion of