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Hare Pie, Cold

A cold pie made from hare, liver, bacon, herbs, onion, and egg yolks, finished with savoury jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hare Pie, Cold

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the hare with salt and pepper.

  2. Prepare forcemeat with liver, bacon, herbs, onion, pepper, and mace.

  3. Form the forcemeat into balls.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the balls and sliced egg yolks between the hare joints.

  2. Bake in a dish or raised crust until cooked.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooled, fill with savoury jelly before serving.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Liver + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Pepper + livertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Forms the main body of the pie, providing the meat and its savoury flavour.
Liver
Adds richness and a soft, moist texture to the forcemeat.
Bacon
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and adds savoury flavour.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a crumbly texture between the layers of meat.
Savoury jelly
Fills the pie after cooling, adding moisture and a glossy set.

The step that matters

Filling with jelly after cooling. Jelly must be added only once the pie has cooled, because hot liquid would melt the set and make the filling runny. Cooling lets the jelly gel firmly around the meat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, liver, onion, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, liver, onion, egg. 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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