Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
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.
Prepare the stuffing
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix together bread crumbs, suet, lemon zest, thyme, parsley, pepper, salt, and eggs.
Stuff the mixture inside the hare.
Roast and serve
Cover the back of the hare with bacon to keep it moist.
Roast the hare for one hour.
Remove the bacon, baste the hare, and sprinkle with flour and salt.
Serve with gravy and butter, and currant jelly on the side.
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.
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Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together14,036 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together9,057 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Lemon + thymetop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,973 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together34,118 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,039 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body so it holds together while roasting.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
- Eggs
- Bind the stuffing ingredients together so they set into a cohesive mass.
- Bacon
- Covers the back of the hare, adding fat that helps keep the meat moist.
The step that matters
Covering the back of the hare with bacon. Lean game meat dries out easily in dry oven heat. The bacon fat shields the surface and bastes the meat, helping keep it moist during the one-hour roast.
Flavor stand-ins for the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper, egg, butter):
- Limebetter flavor fit
- Orangebetter flavor fit
- Red currantbetter flavor fit
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper, egg, butter. 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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