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Potted Hare

A hare cooked slowly in butter and seasonings, then minced and seasoned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Potted Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Clean the hare as for roasting and wipe it dry.

  2. Cut the hare into joints and season with salt, cayenne, cloves, mace, or nutmeg.

  3. Pack the seasoned hare tightly in a jar or deep pan.

Bake

  1. Add small bits of butter evenly over the hare or enough water to prevent it from hardening.

  2. Cover the jar with two layers of thick brown paper tied securely.

  3. Bake slowly until the hare is very tender.

Finish and pound

  1. Let it cool completely, then remove the butter and scrape off any moisture.

  2. Mince the flesh, removing all skin and sinew, and pound it in a mortar.

  3. Adjust seasoning as necessary, ensuring a balanced flavor.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Hare
Provides the tender meat that becomes the body of the potted dish.
Butter
Seals the surface from air and keeps the meat moist and rich during slow baking.
Mace or nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic flavor to the seasoned meat.
Cayenne pepper or black pepper
Adds a sharp, pungent heat that balances the richness of the meat and butter.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until the hare is very tender. Slow, gentle heat breaks down the connective tissue in the meat, so it becomes tender rather than tough or dry. Sealing it under paper and butter keeps moisture in during the long bake.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, clove, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, butter. 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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