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Jugged Hare

A stew of hare pieces seasoned with spices, stock, and port, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Jugged Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Cut the hare into shoulders, legs, and back pieces.

  2. Daub the pieces well with fat bacon.

  3. Place the pieces in a stewpot with the trimmings.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add allspice, mace, whole pepper, garlic, onions, bay leaves, parsley, thyme, and savory tied in a small bunch.

  2. Pour in the veal stock and red port.

  3. Simmer until three-quarters cooked.

  4. Remove the hare pieces.

  5. Place them in another stewpan.

  6. Strain the cooking liquid into the stewpan.

Thicken and serve

  1. Add flour and butter to thicken.

  2. Let it stew until tender.

  3. Skim off excess fat.

  4. Season with cayenne, salt, and lemon juice.

  5. Serve in a deep dish.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and rich through slow stewing.
Veal stock
Provides the liquid base and savory body that the sauce is built on.
Red port
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the rich, reduced liquid.
Flour and butter
Thicken the cooking liquid into a smooth, glossy sauce.
Bacon fat
Adds fat and savory flavour that coats the meat during cooking.
Onions
Release sweetness and aromatic flavour into the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Skim off excess fat. Fat from the bacon and meat floats on the liquid and can make the sauce greasy and heavy if not removed before thickening and serving.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, pepper, clove, garlic, onion, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, pepper, clove, garlic, onion, parsley, thyme. 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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