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An Excellent Hash May Be Made of a Cold Roast Hare

A hash made from sliced cold roast hare or venison simmered with onion, peppercorns, celery, vegetables, spices, wine, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

An Excellent Hash May Be Made of a Cold Roast Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Break up the bones and place them in a stew pan with the onion, peppercorns, celery, vegetables, spices, leftover sauce, red wine, and enough water to cover the bones.

  2. Simmer for 1.5 hours, then strain the gravy.

Make the gravy

  1. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour, and flavor it with red currant jelly, mushroom ketchup, vinegar, and more red wine.

Finish and serve

  1. Trim the meat into slices and remove any remaining stuffing.

  2. Heat the hare slices in the sauce without boiling.

  3. Serve with stuffing that has been sliced and fried in butter as a garnish.

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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Venison + red winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together167 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Red wine + red curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast hare or venison
Provides the main meat, which is gently reheated in the finished sauce.
Butter
Enriches the gravy with fat and, with flour, helps thicken it.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter, giving it body.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang that balances the savory gravy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy.
Red wine
Adds depth and aroma to the stock and the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Heat the hare slices without boiling. Boiling toughens meat proteins and makes them dry and stringy, so the slices should be warmed gently in the sauce just until heated through.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, onion, sauce, red wine, butter, flour, red currant):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, onion, sauce, red wine, butter, flour, red currant. 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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