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To Roast Hare

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Roast Hare

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wipe the hare dry and remove the heart and liver. Scald the liver for stuffing.

  2. Mix pepper and ginger, rub inside the hare, and place a piece of charcoal inside.

  3. Soak the hare in water for 1-2 hours. If old, lard it or soak in vinegar, then wash well.

  4. Stuff the hare's belly with the stuffing mixture and sew it up.

  5. Baste with milk until half done, then switch to butter.

  6. If blood settles in the neck, soak in warm water and pat near the fire to remove it.

  7. Keep the hare at a distance from the fire initially. Serve with gravy, melted butter, and currant-jelly sauce.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  4. Liver + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, ginger, milk, butter, sauce, liver, anchovy):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, ginger, milk, butter, sauce, liver, anchovy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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