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Hare Pie, Raised

A savory pie filled with hare, veal, bacon, and jellied gravy, topped with pastry and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hare Pie, Raised

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the crust and meats

  1. Mix flour, butter or lard, salt, and water to make a crust. Set aside.

  2. Bone the hare and preserve the blood.

  3. Mince the veal and bacon finely, then pound them together, adding the blood gradually.

Assemble the pie

  1. Roll the pastry to ½ inch thick and shape it for the pie mold.

  2. Butter the mold and press the pastry into it.

  3. Layer the forcemeat and hare in the mold, filling cavities with forcemeat and jellied gravy.

  4. Top with bacon slices, cover with pastry, brush with beaten egg, and decorate.

  5. Do not add gravy until after baking.

Bake and serve

  1. Make a hole in the center and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 3 hours.

  2. Check doneness by piercing with a skewer; it should go through easily.

  3. Serve cold.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the pastry its structure and holds the pie together.
Butter or lard
Fat shortens the dough, keeping the crust tender and flaky rather than tough.
Hare
The main meat, providing the dish's flavor and the bulk of the filling.
Veal
Lean minced meat that binds with the forcemeat and gives it a fine, even texture.
Bacon
Adds fat and moisture to the forcemeat and seasons the filling as it renders.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on top promotes browning and gives the crust a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Check doneness with a skewer. A large pie can look browned outside while the center stays underdone. A skewer that passes through easily shows the meat and forcemeat are cooked through and tender.

“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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