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Jugged Hare

A stew of hare with bacon, spices, and red port, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Jugged Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Prepare the hare by removing the skin and cutting off the shoulders and legs.

  2. Divide the back into three pieces.

  3. Coat the pieces with fat bacon and place them in a stewpan with the trimmings.

Make the sauce

  1. Add allspice, mace, whole pepper, garlic, onions, bay leaves, parsley, thyme, and savory tied together.

  2. Pour in veal stock and red port, then simmer until nearly done.

  3. Remove the hare pieces and strain the liquid into another stewpan with the hare.

  4. Add butter and flour to thicken the sauce, then stew until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Skim off the fat, season with Cayenne, salt, and lemon juice, and serve in a deep dish.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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 in liquid.
Veal stock
Forms the braising liquid and gives the sauce body and savoury depth.
Red port
Adds sweetness and fruity depth to the sauce as it reduces during simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the finished sauce, giving it a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the hare pieces instead of running thin.
Onions
Soften during stewing and add sweetness and aromatic body to the liquid.

The step that matters

Skim off the fat before seasoning. Fat rises and collects on the surface of a long-simmered stock. Removing it first keeps the sauce clean-tasting, and seasoning after reduction prevents the salt and cayenne from becoming too strong as the liquid concentrates.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, pepper, clove, garlic, onion, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, pepper, clove, garlic, onion, parsley, thyme. 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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