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Jugged Hare

A stew of hare pieces cooked with spices, broth, and wine, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Jugged Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. Lard the hare pieces with fat bacon and place them in a stewpot with the trimmings.

  2. Add allspice, mace, whole pepper, garlic, onions, bay leaves, and the herb bunch.

  3. Pour in the veal broth and Port wine.

  4. Simmer until three parts done.

Strain and thicken

  1. Remove the hare pieces.

  2. Strain the liquid into another stewpan.

  3. Add flour and butter to the strained liquid to thicken it slightly.

Finish and serve

  1. Stew the hare pieces until tender.

  2. Skim off fat.

  3. Season with cayenne pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

  4. Serve in a deep 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow stewing.
Fat bacon
Larding adds fat and moisture that keeps the lean hare meat from drying out.
Onions
Break down during simmering, adding body and sweetness to the stock.
Veal broth
Forms the liquid base, adding savory depth and body to the sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth, and its acidity helps balance the rich meat.
Flour and butter
Together form a roux that thickens the strained liquid into a sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until three parts done. Cooking the hare only partly at this stage leaves it tender enough later, while stewing it fully now would make it dry and stringy. The second, longer stew then finishes it.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, pepper, clove, garlic, onion, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, pepper, clove, garlic, onion, parsley, thyme. 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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