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Potted Hare

A dish of hare meat cooked in butter, then mashed and served with clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Liver and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,065 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potted Hare

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and bake

  1. Cut up the hare and pack it in a deep dish with the liver and fresh butter.

  2. Tie it down with oiled paper and bake at 300°F (150°C) until tender.

  3. Drain the hare.

Make the paste

  1. When cold, pick the meat from the bones, skin, and sinew.

  2. Season the meat highly.

  3. Beat the seasoned meat to a paste, adding cold water from the gravy.

Pot and seal

  1. Put the mixture into pots and press it down well.

  2. Pour clarified butter on top.

  3. Tie down tightly.

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. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Forms the bulk of the meat that is cooked, then picked and pounded into the paste.
Hare liver
Adds richness and a deeper, savoury flavour to the paste.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the cooked meat rich and soft.
Clarified butter
Forms a fat layer over the top that helps seal out air.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture into the pots. Pressing down well removes air pockets, and the clarified butter layer must then seal the surface. Air trapped under the fat lets the meat spoil sooner.

“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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