Name: Roast Hare
Ingredients: 1 young hare; 6 thin slices of bacon; 1 lb forcemeat; 1 large slice of fat bacon; ½ pint milk; 4 oz butter; Red currant jelly; Gravy

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Roast Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the hare in warm water for 1 hour.
Rinse it well, dry it, and place it on a board.
Line the inside of the hare with thin slices of bacon.
Cook the liver and kidneys of the hare in a little butter.
Chop the liver and kidneys finely and mix them with the forcemeat.
Fill the inside of the hare with this mixture, reserving some for garnishing.
Sew up the hare and truss it for roasting.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + red curranttop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together193 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Butter + red curranttop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together495 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).