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Hare Civet

A stew of hare pieces cooked in beef stock and Madeira, finished with a sauce of liver, nutmeg, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hare Civet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Cut the back of the hare into pieces and lard with bacon and ham.

  2. Blanch the larded hare in boiling water for 1 minute.

Cook the hare

  1. Simmer the hare in beef stock, Madeira, herbs, and bay leaf until cooked.

  2. Remove the hare and place it on a dish.

Make the sauce and liver topping

  1. Add plain sauce to the cooking liquid and reduce to a good thickness.

  2. Fry and mince the liver.

  3. Mix the liver with nutmeg and lemon juice.

  4. Heat the liver mixture.

  5. Pour the heated liver mixture over the hare.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Ham + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Beef + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,495 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Ham + livertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Beef + livertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Legs and shoulders of hare
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering in liquid.
Thick slips of bacon
Larding fat that melts during cooking, keeping the lean hare meat moist and flavourful.
Thick slips of ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the meat within the larding.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid, which is reduced into the sauce.
Plain sauce
Thickens the cooking liquid, giving the finished sauce body when reduced.
Liver of hare
Contributes rich, earthy flavour and body to the topping that is poured over the hare.

The step that matters

Reducing the sauce to a good thickness. Reducing concentrates flavour and thickens the liquid through evaporation. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin and watery, while over-reducing makes it salty and pasty.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, madeira wine, sauce, liver, nutmeg):

  1. Applefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Orangefits less well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, madeira wine, sauce, liver, nutmeg. 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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