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Stewed Hare

A stew of hare pieces cooked with apple, onion, herbs, and flour in butter or lard, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,207 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Stewed Hare

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the hare pieces on a dish and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Add the apple and bacon or ham, if using.

  3. In a bowl, mix the onion, sweet herbs, and flour.

  4. Add the water, stock, or wine to the mixture and combine well.

Bake

  1. Place all ingredients in a paper bag and lay it on the grid.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 45 minutes.

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. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle moist cooking.
Onion
Softens as it cooks, adding sweetness and aroma to the savoury liquid.
Apple
Adds gentle sweetness and acidity that balances the rich, strong flavour of the meat.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid as its starch swells with heat, giving the sauce body.
Butter or lard
Adds richness and fat, which carries flavour and helps keep the meat moist.
Water, stock, or wine
Supplies the moisture that gently cooks the hare and forms the base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Combine the flour well with the liquid. Flour clumps when it meets liquid unevenly, leaving dry lumps. Mixing it thoroughly with the onion and herbs first, then adding the liquid gradually, helps the starch hydrate evenly and thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, onion, flour, wine):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, onion, flour, wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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