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Hare, Ragout

A stew of hare pieces marinated in vinegar, onions, and spices, simmered with butter, flour, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Hare, Ragout

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Place the best parts of the hare (back, shoulders, legs) in a deep dish and cover with vinegar.

  2. Add bay leaf, onion with cloves, peppercorns, and shallots to the dish.

  3. Marinate the hare mixture for 24 hours.

Make the gravy

  1. In a stewpan, melt butter over moderate heat.

  2. Add sliced onions and flour to the butter, stirring until onions are browned.

  3. Gradually add water, stirring until smooth.

  4. Add herbs, allspice, sliced carrot, inferior hare pieces, and bacon to the stew.

  5. Simmer gently for 1 hour.

  6. Strain the gravy and refrigerate overnight to remove fat.

Stew and serve

  1. Drain the hare from vinegar and stew in the gravy until tender.

  2. Season with salt and pepper as needed.

  3. Serve with forcemeat balls around the 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

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

  4. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 long, slow stewing in the gravy.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade helps tenderise the meat and adds a sharp, tangy note.
Butter
Fat for cooking the onions and flour, carrying flavour and helping them brown.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the butter and water.
Onions
Browned onions add sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Bacon
Renders fat and salty, smoky flavour into the gravy during simmering.

The step that matters

Refrigerate the strained gravy overnight. Fat solidifies on cold liquid and can be lifted off cleanly, so the finished gravy is not greasy. Skipping the chill leaves the fat mixed in.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, shallot, butter, flour, allspice, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, shallot, butter, flour, allspice, carrot. 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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