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Liver Sauce for Hare or Roast Rabbit

A savory sauce made from hare or rabbit liver, gravy, shallot, herbs, vinegar, wine, and butter.

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

Prepare the liver

  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.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix them into the gravy to thicken.

  2. Add vinegar and wine.

  3. Steep the crumb of a penny roll in port wine.

  4. Heat with butter.

  5. Beat smooth.

  6. Add pepper, salt, jelly, and vinegar.

  7. Let it boil.

  8. 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
Provides the main body and rich flavour of the sauce once stewed and pounded.
Good gravy
Forms the liquid base that carries the sauce and is thickened with the pounded solids.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, glossy finish and rounder mouthfeel.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to balance the sharpness of the vinegar and wine.
Crumb of a penny roll
Soaked in port wine, it helps thicken the sauce and give it body.

The step that matters

Let it boil. Once the sauce is beaten smooth with the butter, jelly and vinegar, boiling must be controlled. Excess heat can split the butter and dull the sharp, balanced flavour, while the starch from the bread crumb needs enough heat to thicken fully.

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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