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Hare Pie

A savory pie filled with hare meat, liver, and brains, cooked in a rich gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Hare Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Clean the hare thoroughly and cut it into pieces.

  2. In a stew pan, combine the hare, sweet herbs, shallots, cloves, allspice, black pepper, port wine, and enough broth to cover the hare.

  3. Cover and simmer for 1.5 hours.

  4. Remove the prime parts (back, legs, and blade bones) and set aside to cool.

  5. Continue to stew the remaining parts until the gravy is rich and reduced.

Make the stuffing

  1. Prepare stuffing with the hare's liver and brains, seasoning with pepper, salt, and cayenne.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie dish with the crust, add the meat, stuffing, and gravy, then cover with more crust.

  2. Bake until the crust is golden brown.

  3. Strain and thicken the remaining gravy, adding lemon juice and port wine, then pour it into the pie while hot.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Shallot + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, slow simmering in liquid.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the stewed gravy.
Shallots
Build a savoury, aromatic base that flavours the broth and gravy.
Broth
Provides the cooking liquid that tenderises the hare and forms the gravy.
Hare liver and brains
Enrich the stuffing with richness and a soft, moist texture.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the outer shell.

The step that matters

Remove the prime parts before continuing to stew. Lean, delicate pieces like the back and legs overcook and turn dry if they simmer as long as the tougher parts, so setting them aside keeps them moist.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, allspice, pepper, port wine, liver):

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, pepper, port wine, liver. 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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