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Potted Hare

A stew of hare and ham, simmered with spices, reduced with Port wine, then mashed and baked with clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and port wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,499 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Potted Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the hare

  1. In a stew-pan, combine hare, ham, butter, stock, pepper, salt, mixed spice, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Cook over low heat for 1 hour.

  3. Add Port wine and boil until the liquid reduces to a glaze.

Pound and season

  1. Transfer the mixture to a mortar and pound until fine.

  2. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

Pot and bake

  1. Pack into pots and cover with clarified butter.

  2. Bake in the oven for a few minutes until the butter is absorbed.

Finish

  1. Remove from the oven, cool, and top with more clarified butter.

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. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Pepper + port winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,804 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Ham + port winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Forms the meat base, which becomes tender after long gentle cooking and pounding.
Ham
Adds savoury flavour and fat that keeps the pounded meat moist and rich.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and its clarified form seals the top of the pots.
Port wine
Boiled down to a glaze, it adds sweetness and depth of flavour.
Stock
Supplies liquid for the slow cooking and a savoury base for the mixture.

The step that matters

Reducing the Port to a glaze. Boiling the Port until it thickens concentrates its sugars and flavour. If it is left too wet, the mixture stays loose and the flavour is diluted.

“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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