Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Hare Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Mince the best part of a hare with some firm mutton suet.
Season the mixture with coarse sea salt.
Pound the mixture in a mortar until well combined.
Mix in raw eggs to form a dough.
Shape the mixture into small cakes.
Coat the cakes in flour.
Fry the cakes in hot oil or bake them at 400°F (200°C) until cooked through.
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.
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mutton + eggtop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,648 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,695 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
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