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Stewed Habe

A stew of hare pieces cooked with apple, bacon or ham, onion, herbs, flour, and liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,207 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Stewed Habe

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the hare pieces on a dish and season with salt and pepper. Add the apple and bacon or ham if using.

  2. In a bowl, mix the onion, sweet herbs, and flour. Add the water, stock, or wine to the mixture and combine well.

Bake and serve

  1. Place all ingredients in a paper bag and lay it on the grid.

  2. Cook in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 45 minutes.

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. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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
Is the main meat, which becomes tender through slow moist cooking in the bag.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens and mingles with the juices.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid slightly, giving the sauce body.
Bacon or ham
Adds fat and salty, smoky flavour that carries into the meat and juices.
Apple
Contributes gentle sweetness and acidity that balances the rich meat.

The step that matters

Sealing the paper bag. The bag traps steam so the hare cooks in its own moisture. If it is not closed well, juices escape, the meat can dry out, and the sauce will be thin.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Grapefits about as well
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, ham, butter, onion, flour, 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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