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Fricasseed Hare

A stew of hare pieces simmered with pepper, salt pork, onion, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 18,214 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fricasseed Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the hare pieces in cold water for a while, then drain well.

  2. Place the hare in a saucepan with pepper and salt pork.

  3. Cover with water and simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Add chopped onion.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a smooth flour paste and stir it into the pot.

  2. Let simmer until the meat is tender.

  3. Add ½ cup of cream.

  4. If the sauce is too thin, add more flour.

  5. Boil once.

  6. Serve hot.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,214 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Pork + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together3,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together22,121 recipes

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

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together32,460 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
Is the main meat, becoming tender through long, gentle simmering.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, rounder body to the sauce.
Salt pork
Adds savoury fat and flavour to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour paste. Flour must be mixed smoothly into a paste before stirring in, otherwise it forms lumps. Starch thickens the liquid only when it is heated, so the sauce needs to simmer after adding it to reach the desired thickness.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, pork, flour, cream):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, pork, flour, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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