Skip to main content
Main

Jugged Hare

A stew of hare pieces, bacon, onion, and spices, thickened with flour and cornflour, then cooked in a sealed jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Jugged Hare

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the hare

  1. Skin and wash the hare thoroughly.

  2. Cut the hare into small pieces.

Brown and make the sauce

  1. Melt the dripping in a stewpan.

  2. Add the hare, bacon, and onion. Fry until browned.

  3. Drain the meat on paper and place it in a jar.

  4. Stir the flour and cornflour into the pan and mix smoothly with the fat. Cook for a few minutes.

  5. Gradually add the stock and let it boil and thicken.

  6. Season with salt, spice, and pepper.

  7. Add the celery seed, thyme, parsley, lemon juice, and browning sauce. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  8. Strain the sauce over the meat.

Bake and serve

  1. Seal the jar with a dough made of flour and water.

  2. Place the sealed jar in a pan of boiling water. Cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 3 hours.

  3. Arrange the meat on a hot dish and strain the sauce over it.

  4. Garnish with herb forcemeat balls and red-currant jelly.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 during the long, slow cooking.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the fat and stock.
Cornflour
Adds extra thickening power to the sauce, giving it a smooth body.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and flavour as it renders and browns with the onion.
Dripping
Carries the frying and adds rich, savoury flavour to the meat and onion.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savouriness and moisture.

The step that matters

Browning the hare before adding liquid. Frying the meat until browned develops deep, savoury flavours through the Maillard reaction, which the long slow cooking cannot fully create later.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, celery, thyme, parsley, lemon, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, celery, thyme, parsley, lemon, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipes