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A Hare Pie

A savory pie filled with hare, bacon, onions, and a forcemeat mixture, baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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A Hare Pie

Why it works: Nutmeg and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 406 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

A Hare Pie

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 the hare

  1. Season the hare pieces with mace, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  2. Place the hare in a jug with ½ pound of butter, cover tightly, and set in boiling water for 1.5 hours.

  3. Remove the hare and let it cool.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Make a forcemeat by mixing bacon, onions, red wine, bread crumb, winter savory, chopped liver, nutmeg, pepper, and salt with the egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Raise the pie crust and place the forcemeat at the bottom.

  2. Add the hare pieces and the gravy from cooking.

  3. Cover with the pie lid and decorate with flowers or leaves.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + winter savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  5. Mace + winter savorytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, gentle cooking in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture as the hare cooks slowly in the jug.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the forcemeat, keeping it moist as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together when sliced and served.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the forcemeat.
Bread crumb
Absorbs liquid and gives the forcemeat body and a softer texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the hare in the covered jug. Gentle, sealed cooking in boiling water keeps the hare moist; if the jug is not tightly covered, steam escapes and the meat can dry out.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, nutmeg, pepper, onion, red wine, winter savory, liver):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, nutmeg, pepper, onion, red wine, winter savory, liver. 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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