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A Hare Pie

A savory pie made with hare, bacon, onions, red wine, bread crumbs, spices, and egg yolks, baked in a crust.

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

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.

  3. Stew for 1.5 hours, then remove and let cool.

Make the forcemeat

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

Assemble and bake

  1. Raise the pie crust.

  2. Place the forcemeat at the bottom of the crust.

  3. Add the hare with its gravy on top of the forcemeat.

  4. Cover with the pie lid and place leaves on top.

  5. 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, covered stewing in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the hare stay tender during the covered stew.
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.
Penny-loaf
Bread crumbs add body to the forcemeat and absorb its juices.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften into the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Stewing the hare in a sealed jug. Cooking covered in butter over gentle boiling water keeps the meat moist and tender. If the lid is loose or the heat too fierce, the meat can dry out and toughen before it is baked in the pie.

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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