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Gateau De Lievre, — Hare Cake for a Second Course

A savory cake made from hare meat, liver, ham, and seasonings, baked slowly in layers with lard, pistachios, and truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Gateau De Lievre, — Hare Cake for a Second Course

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Prepare the hare as directed and save the liver and blood.

  2. Scrape the meat from the skin and sinews, then mince it with the liver, calf's liver, and ham.

  3. Pound the mixture with a little cold broth or hare/game soup until smooth.

  4. Add one-third of the total mixture weight in rasped lard and pound again.

  5. Season with salt, pepper, blanched onions, parsley, and a spoonful of brandy.

  6. Mix in six to eight eggs one at a time.

  7. Add garlic juice if desired.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a stewpan with slices of lard.

  2. Spread the forcemeat to a thickness of 1.5 inches, smoothing the top.

  3. Layer with lard, pistachios, and truffles cut into strips.

  4. Add another layer of forcemeat.

  5. Cover with slices of bacon and paper.

  6. Close the pan.

  7. Bake slowly for 2 to 3 hours.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

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

  5. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the forcemeat and set into a firm, sliceable cake when baked.
Hare meat
Provides the main meat body and rich, gamey flavour of the cake.
Lard
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the forcemeat tender and juicy as it cooks.
Calf's liver
Adds richness and a smooth, soft texture to the minced forcemeat.
Truffles
Contribute a deep, earthy aroma to the layers.

The step that matters

Bake slowly for 2 to 3 hours. A slow, gentle oven keeps the egg-bound forcemeat from overheating, which would make it dry, tough, or crumbly. Cooking it low and long lets the centre set evenly while the fat stays moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, liver, ham, pepper, parsley, brandy, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, liver, ham, pepper, parsley, brandy, egg. 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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