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Stewed Hare

A stew of hare meat with bones, sweet herbs, onions, port wine, bacon, salt, mace, and a pounded clove.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Stewed Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gravy

  1. Cut the hare meat into small pieces.

  2. Make a strong gravy using the hare bones, sweet herbs, and onions.

  3. Strain the gravy and return it to the pot.

Stew

  1. Add the hare meat, port wine, bacon, salt, mace, and pounded clove.

  2. Cover the pot and let it stew for 2 hours.

  3. If the gravy reduces too much, add a little water.

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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Port wine + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Port wine + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together695 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare meat
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through slow, moist stewing.
Hare bones
Release gelatin and flavour into the gravy, giving it body and depth.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften into the gravy.
Port wine
Adds acidity and sweetness, and deepens the colour and flavour of the sauce.
Bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat that enriches the gravy and flavours the meat.

The step that matters

Keeping the gravy at the right level during the stew. Long stewing reduces liquid, and if the gravy drops too far the meat can dry out and scorch. Adding a little water, as the record advises, keeps the meat moist and the sauce from concentrating too much.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, port wine, mace, clove):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, port wine, mace, clove. 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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