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Sauce

Liver Sauce for Hare or Roast Rabbit

A sauce made from hare or rabbit liver, gravy, shallot, potherbs, vinegar, wine, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Liver Sauce for Hare or Roast Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stew the liver in good gravy until tender.

  2. Chop the liver finely with shallot, potherbs, chili vinegar, port wine, and currant jelly (for hare) or white wine (for rabbit).

  3. Pound the solid ingredients and mix them into the gravy to thicken, then add vinegar and wine.

  4. Steep the roll crumb in port wine, heat with butter, beat smooth, and add pepper, salt, jelly, and vinegar.

  5. Let it boil and serve hot.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Liver + vealtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  3. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Beef + rabbittop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Breaks down into the gravy and, once pounded, thickens the sauce with body and flavor.
Penny roll crumb
Soaked and beaten smooth, it adds body and helps thicken the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity tartness that balances the rich liver.
Chili vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the liver and butter.

The step that matters

Pounding the solid ingredients into the gravy. If the chopped liver and herbs are not fully pounded, the sauce stays lumpy and uneven. Thickening works best when the solids are finely broken down and mixed evenly into the hot gravy, so the sauce becomes smooth rather than grainy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, beef, veal, rabbit, shallot, parsley, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, beef, veal, rabbit, shallot, parsley, vinegar. 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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