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A Hare-Pie

A savory pie made with hare, butter, bacon, onions, wine, bread crumbs, spices, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the hare

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

  2. Place hare in a jug with ½ pound butter.

  3. Cover tightly.

  4. Set in boiling water for 1.5 hours.

  5. Remove hare to cool.

Make the forcemeat

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

Assemble and bake

  1. Raise pie crust.

  2. Place forcemeat at the bottom.

  3. Add hare with its gravy.

  4. Cover with the lid.

  5. Decorate top with flowers or leaves.

  6. Bake at 350°F (175°C) 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.

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 fat and richness, keeping the hare moist during the long gentle cooking.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the forcemeat, keeping it moist as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together when sliced and baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the forcemeat a softer, cohesive texture.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the forcemeat as they soften.

The step that matters

Set the jug in boiling water for 1.5 hours. Gentle, sealed cooking in water keeps the hare tender and moist; a rolling boil or an uncovered jug can dry out the meat and toughen its fibres.

Swap the mace

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