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Civet of Hare

A stew of hare pieces cooked with bacon, flour, wine, stock, herbs, pepper, onions, mushrooms, and blood.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Civet of Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Cut the hare into pieces and save the blood.

  2. Fry the bacon in a stewpan until done, then remove it.

  3. In the same pan, fry the pieces of hare until browned.

Make the civet

  1. Add flour, then moisten with red wine and stock.

  2. Add sweet herbs, pepper, onions, and mushrooms.

  3. Return the bacon to the pan and cook for a few minutes.

  4. Just before serving, stir in the saved blood.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 and rich during long, slow stewing.
Bacon
Its rendered fat browns the hare and adds savoury depth to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a rich sauce as it is moistened.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth, helping to balance the richness of the meat and fat.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce as they cook.
Blood
Stirred in at the end, it thickens the sauce and gives it a dark, rich colour.

The step that matters

Stir in the blood just before serving. Blood is a protein that coagulates when it gets hot, so if it boils it curdles and turns grainy. Adding it at the end, off the boil, keeps the sauce smooth and thick.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, red wine, thyme, parsley, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, red wine, thyme, parsley, pepper, mushroom. 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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