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Roast Hare or Rabbit

Roast hare stuffed with breadcrumbs, pork fat, marjoram, onion, pepper, and salt, baked with water and served with a currant jelly gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Hare or Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Stuff the hare with a mixture of bread crumbs, chopped fat pork, sweet marjoram, onion, pepper, and coarse sea salt, moistened with hot water.

  2. Sew up the hare with fine cotton and tie the legs closely to the body.

Roast

  1. Place the hare in a roasting pan, back side up, and pour boiling water over it.

  2. Cover with another pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 45 minutes, basting occasionally with butter and water.

  3. Uncover the hare.

  4. Baste with gravy until browned.

  5. Dredge with flour.

  6. Add butter until frothy.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the hare.

  2. Keep it warm.

  3. Strain the pan juices.

  4. Season the juices.

  5. Thicken with browned flour.

  6. Stir in currant jelly and chopped parsley.

  7. Boil.

  8. Pour some gravy over the hare.

  9. Serve the rest in a gravy boat.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hare
Is the main meat, cooked whole so the stuffing and juices flavour it.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the moisture and juices from the hare, giving the stuffing body and a softer texture.
Fat pork
Adds fat that bastes the meat from inside, keeping it moist and rich during roasting.
Onion
Contributes savory aroma and sweetness to the stuffing as it cooks.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a touch of acidity that balances the rich gravy.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into gravy and helps the gravy brown.

The step that matters

Baste with gravy until browned. Browning depends on the sugars and proteins on the surface reacting with dry heat. The meat needs enough liquid and fat to brown evenly without drying out or scorching.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pork, marjoram, onion, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pork, marjoram, onion, pepper, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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