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To Jug Hare

A stew of hare pieces cooked with bacon or beef, herbs, onions, bay leaves, lemon rind, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

To Jug Hare

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Season the hare pieces with salt and pepper.

  2. Place the hare in a jugging can that will just hold them.

Cook

  1. Add bacon or beef, herbs, onions, bay leaves, lemon rind, and water.

  2. Cover the jugging can tightly to prevent steam from escaping.

  3. Set the jugging can in a steamer, kettle of boiling water, or a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for at least 3 hours.

Finish

  1. Once done, skim off the fat and strain the gravy to thicken it.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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, gentle moist cooking.
Bacon or hashed beef
Adds savoury fat and meaty flavour to the stock and gravy.
Onions
Release sweetness and aromatic flavour into the cooking liquid over the long cook.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aromatic oils that lift the rich flavour of the stew.

The step that matters

Keep the jugging can tightly covered. A tight seal keeps steam and moisture in, so the hare cooks gently in its own juices instead of drying out. Lost steam over a three-hour cook can leave the meat tough and the gravy too thin.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, beef, thyme, parsley, clove, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, beef, thyme, parsley, clove, lemon. 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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