Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,039 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare the hare
Wipe the outside of the cleaned hare without washing it, cut off the legs, and split the back into four pieces.
Place the hare on a dish to catch the blood, baste it with the red wine mixed with the blood, cover, and refrigerate for 2-3 days.
Brown and braise
In a stewpan, melt butter and brown the hare over a brisk fire, then remove it temporarily.
Brown the flour in the same stewpan, then add the broth or water and return the hare.
Add lemon slices, chopped bacon, cloves, salt, pepper, and the mixture of wine and blood.
Cover the stewpan and simmer gently until the meat is tender.
Serve
Once cooked, place the hare on a hot dish, strain the cooking stock over it, garnish with lemon slices, and serve.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,039 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Clove + peppertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together13,144 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Red wine + clovetop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together636 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Flour + buttertop 6% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together122,858 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Red wine + buttertop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,598 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.
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 long, gentle simmering.
- Red wine
- Marinates and flavours the meat, adding acidity and depth to the sauce.
- Flour
- Browned in the pan to thicken the cooking stock into a sauce.
- Bacon fat
- Adds savoury richness and flavour to the stewing liquid.
- Butter
- Helps brown the hare, building colour and roasted flavour on the surface.
The step that matters
Simmering gently until tender. Hare is lean and firm, so it needs low, slow heat to break down connective tissue. A rapid boil toughens the meat and can make the sauce cloudy or greasy.
Flavor stand-ins for the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red wine, flour, clove, pepper, butter):
- Plumbetter flavor fit
- Grapeabout as good a flavor fit
- Appleabout as good a flavor fit
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against red wine, flour, clove, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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