Name: Roasted Hare
Ingredients: 1 hare, well soaked; ⅓ cup Madeira wine; Egg, for brushing; Bread crumbs; Butter, for basting; Espagnole sauce, for serving; 2-3 cloves (optional)

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Roasted Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the skin from the soaked hare and place it on a spit.
Rub the hare with Madeira wine, pricking it in various places.
Cover the hare entirely with a paste and roast it.
Once done, remove the paste and quickly rub the hare with egg.
Sprinkle bread crumbs over the hare and baste gently with butter.
Keep turning the hare before the fire until it forms a nice brown crust.
Serve the hare over espanol sauce with Madeira wine boiled in it.
Optionally, stick cloves into the knuckles.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Bread + clovetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,129 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (madeira wine, egg, bread, butter, sauce):

Nutmegfits better
Capersfits better
Parsleyfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against madeira wine, egg, bread, butter, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.