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Mock Hare

A meatloaf made with sausage, beef, pork slices, bread, onion, egg, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Mock Hare

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Soak the bread in cold water until soft.

  2. Press out all the water from the soaked bread.

  3. Melt the butter in a pan.

  4. Cook the chopped onion for 5 minutes without browning.

  5. Let the cooked onion cool.

  6. Mix the sausage meat, chopped beef, soaked bread, cooled onion, egg, pepper, and salt in a bowl.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the mixture into a long, round loaf.

  2. Brush the loaf with water.

  3. Lay the thin pork slices in a pan.

  4. Place the loaf on top of the pork slices.

  5. Cover the loaf with three more pork slices.

  6. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

  7. Baste the loaf with stock or gravy.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sausage meat
Forms the main body of the loaf and gives it rich, savory flavor.
Chopped beef
Adds meaty texture and substance to the loaf.
Bread
Soaked and pressed dry, it adds moisture and a tender crumb to the filling.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Butter
Softens the onion and adds richness to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the onion without browning. Browned onion turns bitter and dark and can change the flavor and color of the loaf. Cooking it gently until soft and then cooling it before mixing keeps the filling mild and prevents the egg from scrambling in the mixture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, beef, bread, butter, egg, pepper, pork):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, beef, bread, butter, egg, pepper, pork. 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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