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A Hare Pie

A savory pie made with hare, butter, bacon, onions, and spices, baked with a forcemeat filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

Prepare the hare

  1. Cut the hare into pieces and season 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.

  3. Let it cook for 1.5 hours, then remove and cool.

Make the forcemeat

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

Assemble and bake

  1. Raise the pie crust.

  2. Place the forcemeat at the bottom.

  3. Add the hare with its gravy.

  4. Cover with the lid.

  5. Decorate with flowers or leaves.

  6. Bake 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, keeping the meat succulent during the long gentle cook.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the forcemeat, keeping it moist as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together and sets when baked.
Bread crumb
Absorbs liquid and gives the forcemeat a light, tender body.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Cook the hare gently in a sealed jug. Cooking the hare tightly covered in a jug set in boiling water traps moisture and heats it gently. Too much heat or an open pot dries out lean game meat, so the gentle, sealed method keeps it tender and juicy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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