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Potted Hare

A hare cooked slowly with butter, spices, and water, then chilled and served in pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Potted Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Hang the hare for 4 to 5 days.

  2. Clean the inside thoroughly and wipe it dry with cloths.

  3. Cut the hare into pieces and place it in a baking dish.

Bake and cool

  1. Add the butter and spices tied in a muslin bag, then add enough water to just cover the hare.

  2. Bake until tender, then remove and let cool.

  3. Remove all bones, sinews, and skin from the meat.

Pot and store

  1. Pound the meat finely in a mortar, adding the spices and butter from baking (not the gravy).

  2. Once cold and solid, pack the mixture into pots.

  3. Pour clarified butter over the top and cover with paper.

  4. Store the pots in a dry, cool room.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the lean meat that is pounded into a spreadable texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and sets firm as it cools to seal the potted meat.
Mace
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the meat.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the meat.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic bite that balances the rich butter.

The step that matters

Pounding the meat while it is still warm and moist. Meat pounded into a paste must be cooled and bone-free before packing; leftover bones or sinew stay tough and gritty, and the butter is what binds the texture, so it should be mixed in fully.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, nutmeg, pepper. 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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