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To Roast Hare

A hare roasted with a stuffing of bread crumbs, herbs, and bacon, basted in milk and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Roast Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the hare thoroughly and soak it in water for 1–2 hours.

  2. If the hare is old, lard it to make it tender or soak it in vinegar, then wash it well afterward.

  3. If blood settles in the neck, soak it in warm water and warm it by the fire, nicking the skin to release the blood.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the hare's belly with the stuffing mixture and sew it up.

  2. Keep the hare at a distance from the fire initially.

  3. Baste the hare with milk until half cooked, then switch to basting with butter.

Serve

  1. Serve with froth, rich gravy, melted butter, and currant jelly sauce.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Is the main meat, whose flesh is firmed and browned during roasting.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the surface when basted over the hare.
Milk
Basting liquid that moistens the surface before butter is used.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb stuffing so it holds together in the cavity.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bulk out the stuffing, keeping it tender and moist.
Suet
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and rich during roasting.

The step that matters

Keep the hare away from the fire at first. Intense direct heat dries and toughens the outside before the interior cooks through. Starting at a gentler distance lets heat penetrate evenly, so the meat stays tender and moist.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, liver, anchovy, pepper, onion, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, liver, anchovy, pepper, onion, bread. 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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