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Civet of Hare

A stew of hare with bacon, broth, wine, and blood, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Civet of Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Save the blood from the hare and set it aside.

  2. Lightly fry the bacon cubes in butter until cooked.

  3. Strain the fat from the pan.

  4. Dust the browned flour over the bacon fat to thicken the gravy.

Stew

  1. Add the hare pieces to the pan.

  2. Moisten the hare with broth and red wine.

  3. Season with parsley, onions, salt, pepper, and mushrooms or catsup.

  4. Let the meat stew slowly until tender.

  5. Skim off any fat during the stew.

  6. If desired, add bay leaf, thyme, and garlic for extra flavor.

Finish

  1. Transfer the hare and bacon to a clean pot.

  2. Strain the gravy over the hare and bacon.

  3. Add the bruised liver, reserved blood, and cooked mushrooms and onions.

  4. Do not let it boil to prevent the blood from curdling.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Bacon
Its rendered fat adds savory richness to the gravy and the stew.
Browned flour
Thickens the bacon fat into a smooth gravy.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the liquid as it reduces.
Broth
Forms the main cooking liquid that moistens and flavors the meat.
Blood (in the method)
Thickens the gravy and enriches its color and flavor when added off the heat.

The step that matters

Do not let it boil. Boiling makes the blood proteins coagulate and curdle, leaving the gravy grainy instead of smooth and glossy.

“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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