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To Roast Hare

Roasted hare with stuffing, milk, butter, and optional vinegar, served with gravy and currant-jelly sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Roast Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the hare and wash it thoroughly.

  2. Soak the hare in water for 1-2 hours.

  3. If the hare is old, lard it or soak it in vinegar.

  4. Wash it well in water.

  5. If blood settles in the neck, soak it in warm water.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the hare's belly with a rich stuffing and sew it up.

  2. Keep the hare at a distance from the fire initially.

  3. Warm it by the fire, nicking the skin to release the blood.

  4. Baste the hare with milk until half-cooked.

  5. Switch to butter.

Serve

  1. Serve with froth, rich gravy, melted butter, and currant-jelly sauce.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Vinegar + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Is the main meat, cooked slowly so its firm flesh becomes tender and juicy.
Milk
Basting with milk adds moisture and gentle browning to the surface as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and giving a rich flavour.
Stuffing (including liver)
Fills the belly with rich flavour and moisture while the hare roasts.

The step that matters

Keep the hare at a distance from the fire initially. Starting with gentle, indirect heat lets the meat cook through evenly before the surface browns. Too much heat early can scorch the outside while the centre stays underdone.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, liver, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, liver, vinegar, pepper. 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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