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Jugged Hare

A stew of hare with bacon, spices, and red port, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Jugged Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Case the hare and cut off the shoulders and legs.

  2. Divide the back into three pieces.

  3. Daub the pieces well with fat bacon and place them in a stewpot with the trimmings.

Make the stew

  1. Add a pinch of allspice, mace, whole pepper, garlic, onions, bay leaves, parsley, thyme, and savory tied together.

  2. Pour in 1 quart of veal stock and ¾ cup of red port.

  3. Simmer until three-quarters done.

  4. Remove the shoulders, legs, and back.

  5. Strain the liquor into another stewpan.

  6. Add passed flour and butter to thicken the sauce.

  7. Let it stew until tender.

  8. Skim off excess fat.

  9. Season with Cayenne, salt, and lemon juice.

  10. Serve in a deep dish.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

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

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, slow stewing.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the meat as it is daubed and cooks.
Veal stock
Forms the liquid base of the stew and carries the flavour of the other ingredients.
Red port
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the strained liquor into a sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and body to the thickened sauce.

The step that matters

Add passed flour and butter to thicken the sauce. Flour must be passed through a sieve so it has no lumps, and it should be stirred into the hot liquor. Lumps stay visible in the sauce, and flour added to a liquid that is not hot enough can clump instead of dispersing smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, pepper, clove, garlic, onion, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, pepper, clove, garlic, onion, parsley, thyme. 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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