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Potted Hare

A preserved hare made into a paste with butter, bread, herbs, red currant jelly, and port wine, then sealed in pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Potted Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Choose a large hare and hang it with the skin on for two weeks to enhance flavor.

  2. Prepare a stuffing with butter, grated bread, thyme, marjoram, and lemon thyme.

  3. Stuff the hare and baste it as if for serving in the dining room.

Make the potted meat

  1. Once the meat is cool, separate it from the bones and pick it over.

  2. Pound the meat with clarified butter until it forms a stiff paste.

  3. Season the mixture with mace, cloves, nutmeg, red currant jelly, and port wine.

  4. Blend well and fill pots or jars with the mixture.

  5. Cover with clarified butter and seal with writing paper.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare (in the method)
Provides the main meat that is pounded into the paste.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and binds the pounded meat into a spreadable paste.
Grated bread
Adds body to the stuffing and absorbs fat and juices.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity acidity that balances the rich meat.
Port wine
Adds depth and a sweet, fortified flavor to the seasoned mixture.

The step that matters

Pound the meat with clarified butter until it forms a stiff paste. Pounding breaks the meat into fine fibers and the clarified butter coats them, so the paste sets firm and smooth rather than grainy or loose. Under-working leaves a coarse texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, thyme, marjoram, lemon, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, thyme, marjoram, lemon, clove, nutmeg. 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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