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Mock Hare

A stuffed beef roast marinated in port wine, filled with veal, suet, anchovies, bread, spices, and egg yolks, then roasted and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mock Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the inside of the sirloin and beat it slightly.

  2. Cover the beef with port wine in an earthen pan and let it marinate for 24 hours.

Stuff and roast

  1. Spread a mixture of veal, suet, anchovies, grated bread, mace, pepper, mushroom powder, lemon peel, lemon thyme, eschalot, and egg yolks over the beef.

  2. Roll the beef tightly and roast it by hanging it over the fire.

  3. Baste with the marinade until half cooked, then with cream or a mixture of milk and butter until well coated.

Serve

  1. Serve with a rich gravy flavored with walnut or mushroom catsup and eschalot vinegar.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, roasted whole after being rolled around the filling.
Eggs
Egg yolks bind the stuffing so it holds together when the beef is rolled and cooked.
Suet
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and tender during roasting.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and gives the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Veal
Adds meaty flavour and body to the stuffing alongside the beef.
Butter
Enriches the basting liquid, adding fat that helps the outside brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Rolling the beef tightly. A loose roll lets the stuffing fall out and leaves gaps that cook unevenly. Tight rolling keeps the filling in place and the meat in an even shape for roasting.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, port wine, veal, bread, pepper, mushroom, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, port wine, veal, bread, pepper, mushroom, lemon. 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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