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Leveret, Roasted

A roasted leveret served hot with red currant jelly, accompanied by a gravy made from stock, butter, flour, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and red currant work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Leveret, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Truss the leveret and stuff it with hare stuffing if desired.

  2. Lard the leveret; if not possible, cover it with bacon or buttered paper.

Roast

  1. Roast the leveret before a brisk fire, basting constantly.

  2. A few minutes before it's done, remove the bacon or paper, dredge with flour, and froth it nicely.

Serve and make gravy

  1. Serve hot with red currant jelly.

  2. For gravy, thicken stock with butter rolled in flour, boil for 10 minutes, then stir in port wine and boil again.

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + red curranttop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together495 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Flour + red curranttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Leveret
The main meat, which roasting cooks through while regular basting keeps the surface moist.
Fat bacon
Covers the lean meat and adds fat that bastes it as it roasts.
Flour
Dusted over the surface near the end, it helps the meat froth and brown.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy.
Butter
Rolled in flour, it forms a roux that thickens the gravy.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Removing the bacon or paper and frothing with flour. Timing matters here: uncovering the meat only a few minutes before it finishes lets the surface brown, and flour dredged on hot meat helps form a crisp, frothy crust. Leaving the covering on too long prevents browning, while doing it too early can dry the meat.

Swap the red currant

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

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

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