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Jugged Hare

A stew of hare, beef steak, onions, and seasonings, finished with gravy and optional jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Jugged Hare

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the forcemeat by mixing breadcrumbs, salt, chopped suet, pepper, chopped parsley, anchovy essence, and thyme.

  2. Cut the beef steak into strips.

  3. Place a little forcemeat on each strip, roll up, tie with string, and fry in hot butter until browned.

  4. Skin and clean the hare, saving the blood.

  5. Cut the hare into neat joints and fry quickly in butter.

Stew

  1. In a stew jar, combine the hare, prepared steak, onion, and seasonings.

  2. Add the stock and a little seasoning.

  3. Place the jar in a tin of water and cover tightly.

  4. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 2 to 3 hours until tender.

  5. While cooking, form the remaining forcemeat into balls, egg and crumb them, and fry in hot fat.

  6. Add the forcemeat balls to the hare 20 minutes before it's done.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Once the hare is tender, remove the balls, joints, and steak.

  2. Blend flour into the gravy, boil, season, and add jelly.

  3. Incorporate the saved blood and heat through.

  4. Add the port wine and anchovy essence if desired.

  5. Remove strings from the steak and arrange the hare and steak on a hot dish.

  6. Pour gravy over and garnish with forcemeat balls and glace cherries if desired.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Port wine + red curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Clove + red curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  4. Port wine + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 stew, becoming tender during long, gentle simmering.
Blood (in the method)
Thickens and enriches the gravy, giving it body and a deeper colour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it is blended in and boiled.
Beef steak
Adds meaty richness and savoury flavour; its forcemeat roll stays moist during braising.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished gravy.
Butter
Browns the hare and steak when fried, building savoury flavour at the start.

The step that matters

Simmering the hare gently in a covered jar. A rolling boil toughens meat and dries it out. Gentle simmering in a sealed jar set in water lets the connective tissue break down slowly, keeping the hare tender and moist.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, beef, flour, port wine, clove):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, beef, flour, port wine, clove. 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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