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Hare Pie

A savory pie made with hare, bacon, onions, wine, bread crumbs, and spices, baked in a pie dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 406 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Hare Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Season the hare pieces with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace.

  2. Place the hare in a jug with the butter, seal it, and set it in boiling water.

  3. Make a forcemeat by mixing bacon, onions, red wine, bread crumbs, winter savory, and hare liver.

  4. Season the forcemeat with pepper and salt, then mix in the egg yolks.

Bake

  1. Line the bottom of a pie dish with the forcemeat, add the hare and its juices, and cover with a lid.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 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. Nutmeg + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + winter savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Mace + winter savorytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Supplies the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful during the long, gentle cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the hare stay juicy as it cooks in the sealed jug.
Bacon
Contributes fat and savoury flavour to the forcemeat as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the forcemeat body so it holds together rather than turning greasy.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat, setting during baking to hold it in a cohesive layer.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour that balances the richness of the meat and fat.

The step that matters

Sealing the hare in the jug. If the seal leaks, the butter and juices escape into the boiling water and the hare dries out. A tight seal keeps moisture and fat around the meat so it cooks gently and stays tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg, onion, red wine, winter savory, liver):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, onion, red wine, winter savory, liver. 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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