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Hare Stew

A stew of hare cooked with onion, herbs, mace, port wine, and thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Hare Stew

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 and braise

  1. Cut the hare into joints and place in an earthenware jar.

  2. Add the onion, sweet herbs, parsley, mace, port wine, and enough water to cover the hare.

  3. Cover the jar and place it in a 350°F (175°C) oven to cook slowly until the meat is tender.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the hare pieces and strain the gravy, discarding the herbs and onion.

  2. Thicken the gravy with flour, season with cayenne, soy sauce, and ketchup, then pour it over the hare.

  3. Add forcemeat balls if desired and serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the meat that becomes tender through slow, moist cooking.
Port wine
Adds acidity and sweetness that flavour the braising liquid and gravy.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the hare pieces.
Onion
Releases aromatic flavour into the cooking liquid, then is strained out.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until the meat is tender. Low, covered heat breaks down the connective tissue in the hare gradually. Cooking too hot or too briefly leaves the meat tough, while long moist heat turns it tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, clove, parsley, port wine, pepper, ketchup, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, parsley, port wine, pepper, ketchup, flour. 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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