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Jugged Hare

A stew of hare with butter, oil, flour, herbs, stock, wine, orange rind, lemon juice, and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Jugged Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Cut the hare into neat joints and roll each joint in flour.

  2. Heat the butter and oil in a frying pan until very hot, then fry the hare joints until pale brown.

  3. Remove the hare joints and pour the butter and oil into a large saucepan.

Make the gravy and braise

  1. Heat the saucepan again and fry the carrot and onion until slightly brown.

  2. Add the flour and continue frying until it is a pale brown.

  3. Stir in the stock and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the herbs, hare joints, and any juices from the hare, then boil once.

  5. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 1.5 to 2.5 hours, depending on the hare's age and size.

  6. Add the port wine or claret, lemon juice, red currant jelly, and orange rind.

  7. Boil for 1 minute, season with salt, and adjust the orange flavor if necessary.

Serve

  1. Dish the hare and strain the gravy over and around it.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + orangetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Butter and salad oil
Fat for browning the flour-coated joints, adding colour and roasted flavour to the dish.
Flour
Browns with the fat and thickens the stock into a smooth, rich gravy.
Port wine or claret
Adds depth and body to the gravy and a fruity, slightly sweet flavour.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and gloss to the gravy, balancing the acidity of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, heavy flavour of the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmering the hare gently for 1.5 to 2.5 hours. A gentle simmer breaks down the tough connective tissue slowly, making the meat tender. Boiling hard toughens the meat and can break the joints apart, so keep the liquid just barely moving.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, carrot, celery, port wine, orange, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, carrot, celery, port wine, orange, lemon. 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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