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Hare Cutlets

A savory dish of minced hare formed into cutlets, fried and served with mashed potatoes or rice, garnished with beetroot and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hare Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. In a bowl, combine minced hare, bacon, onion, sage, grated bread, cayenne, and salt.

  2. Moisten the mixture with the egg, knead slightly, and flatten it.

  3. Cut out 9 cutlets using a cutlet-cutter.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets in boiling lard or dripping until golden brown.

  2. Drain the cutlets on a dish.

  3. On a serving plate, place a cup of mashed potatoes or boiled rice in the center.

  4. Garnish with beetroot and parsley, and arrange the cutlets around it on their ends.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + beetroottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Onion + beetroottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,261 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Parboiled hare
Provides the main meat and body of the cutlet mixture.
Bacon or ham
Adds fat and moisture so the cutlets stay juicy while frying.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the mixture so it holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it can be shaped into cutlets.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the meat mixture.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets in boiling lard or dripping until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the surface quickly. Browning gives flavor and a crisp crust, while a cool fat soaks in and leaves the cutlets greasy and soft.

Swap the beetroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, sage, bread, pepper, egg, potato):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Beetrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, sage, bread, pepper, egg, potato. 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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