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Hare Cake

A savory meat cake made from diced hare, mutton, and ham, seasoned and baked with bacon lining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and ham work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 430 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Hare Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Mix the diced hares, mutton, and ham in a bowl.

  2. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, fine spice, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Line a mold with sheets of fat bacon, doubling it at the bottom.

  4. Add the egg yolks to the meat mixture and mix well.

  5. Pour the mixture into the mold and cover the top with thick bacon.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 3 hours.

  2. Let it cool in the mold overnight.

Unmold and serve

  1. To unmold, place the mold in hot water for about 1 minute.

  2. Remove the bacon and decorate as desired.

  3. Serve with chopped aspic around the dish.

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. Mutton + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mutton + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,648 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

Hares
Provide the main meat and body that holds the cake's structure.
Mutton
Adds meaty flavor and richness to the body of the cake.
Ham
Contributes salty, savory flavor and a firmer texture to the meat.
Egg yolks
Bind the meat mixture so it sets firm when baked and cooled.
Fat bacon
Lines the mold and adds fat that moistens and flavors the cake.

The step that matters

Baking at a slow oven temperature. Baking gently at 300°F lets the egg yolks set the meat evenly without drying or toughening it. Overly high heat can curdle the eggs and make the meat tough and dry.

“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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