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Hare Pie

A savory pie filled with hare, bacon, onions, wine, and spices, baked with a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 687 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Hare Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the hare

  1. Season the hare pieces with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace.

  2. Place the hare in a jar with the butter, cover tightly, and set in a large saucepan of boiling water.

Make the forcemeat

  1. In a bowl, mix the bacon, onions, red wine, bread crumb, marjoram, minced liver, and season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Add the egg yolks to the mixture and combine well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Make a raised crust in a pie dish, placing some forcemeat at the bottom.

  2. Layer the hare pieces and forcemeat alternately until all ingredients are used.

  3. Cover the pie and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

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. Nutmeg + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Forms the main meat, providing the substance and rich flavour of the pie.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the hare moist as it cooks in the jar.
Bacon
Adds salty, savoury fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and well flavoured.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat together and help it set firm when baked.
Bread crumb
Absorbs liquid and adds body, giving the forcemeat a softer texture.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Cooking the hare in the jar. Sealing the jar tightly and keeping it in gently boiling water cooks the hare slowly in its own juices and butter. If the seal is loose, water can enter and the meat can dry out or become watery.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg, onion, red wine, marjoram, liver):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, onion, red wine, marjoram, liver. 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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