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Civet of Hare a LA Bourgeoise

A stew of hare with butter, flour, bacon, herbs, mushrooms, artichokes, onions, wine, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Civet of Hare a LA Bourgeoise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat and stir in the flour until combined.

  2. Add the hare pieces, bacon, sweet herbs, mushrooms, artichoke bottoms, and fried onions.

Stew

  1. Season with salt and pepper, pour in the white wine, and add enough stock to cover the ingredients.

  2. Stew until the hare is tender.

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. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Flour + artichoketop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + artichoketop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together447 recipes

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

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and browns the flour for the base.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a rich, smooth sauce as it heats.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that seasons the stewing liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Stew until the hare is tender. Hare has tough connective tissue that only softens with long, gentle simmering. Boiling vigorously toughens the meat and can break up the pieces, so keep the liquid at a slow simmer and check tenderness with a fork before serving.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, mushroom, artichoke, pepper, white wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, mushroom, artichoke, pepper, white wine. 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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