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Jugged Hare

A stew of hare pieces cooked in a jar with herbs, onion, water, thickened with flour and butter, finished with port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Jugged Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jar

  1. Place hare pieces in a jar with sweet herbs, onion, and water.

  2. Seal the jar tightly to prevent steam from escaping.

Stew

  1. Place the jar in a pot of boiling water, ensuring the jar's mouth is above the water.

  2. Keep the water boiling and stew for 4 hours.

  3. Remove any accumulated fat from the jar.

Finish

  1. Thicken the stew with flour and butter, then add port wine for flavor.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + port winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Flour
Thickens the stewing liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Enriches the thickened sauce with fat and a rounder, silkier mouthfeel.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling and stew for 4 hours. Sealed jars in boiling water heat slowly, so the water must stay at a steady boil for the full time. Gentle, prolonged heat breaks down the tough connective tissue in hare, leaving the meat tender. If the water drops, the meat may stay tough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, port wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, port wine. 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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