Why it works: Butter and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,856 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓
Roast Hare
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the hare
Remove the bones from the back and thighs of the hare using a sharp knife, being careful not to cut through the skin.
Prepare double the usual quantity of forcemeat and restore the legs to their original shape.
Line the body of the hare with delicate slices of bacon.
Sew up the hare and truss it as usual.
Roast and serve
Lard the hare if convenient and baste it generously with butter while roasting.
Serve with a sauce made from melted currant jelly in rich brown gravy.
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.
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Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,856 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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 is lean and benefits from basting to stay moist.
- Forcemeat
- Fills the boned body, adding a moist, savoury stuffing that holds the shape while roasting.
- Bacon
- Lines the body, adding fat that bastes the lean meat and flavours it as it cooks.
- Butter
- Basting fat that promotes browning and adds richness to the surface of the roast.
- Currant jelly
- Melted into the gravy to add sweetness and a fruity acidity that balances the rich sauce.
The step that matters
Removing the bones without cutting the skin. Lean hare meat dries out quickly, and the skin holds the stuffing and keeps the body intact. A torn skin lets the forcemeat escape and the meat lose juices during roasting.
“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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