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Civet of Hare

A stew of hare with bacon, onions, mushrooms, wine, sauces, and optional chutney.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,719 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Civet of Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Cut the hare into neat pieces and wipe it without washing.

  2. Cut the bacon into strips and fry in a saucepan.

  3. Add the hare to the saucepan and sauté for about 10 minutes.

Simmer

  1. Add the claret, bouquet garni, and mushrooms; let simmer gently for 1 hour.

  2. Add the brown sauce and previously blanched onions; simmer for another 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the bouquet garni and serve with fried croutons.

  4. For an improvement, add tomato sauce, glaze, and chutney.

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. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 simmering.
Bacon
Its rendered fat adds savoury richness to the pan for browning the hare.
Claret or port wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour as it reduces during the long simmer.
Brown sauce
Thickens the cooking liquid and adds a deep, savoury body to the stew.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and moisture to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Wipe the hare without washing it. Washing meat adds surface water that dilutes flavour and slows browning, so the hare should be wiped dry before it is seared in the bacon fat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, port wine, sauce, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, port wine, sauce, tomato. 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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