Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Roast Hare
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Line the inside of the hare with bacon slices.
Fill the hare with veal stuffing.
Truss the limbs close to the body and tie them securely with string.
Cut the throat to release any excess blood.
Roast and serve
Baste the hare with milk during the first part of roasting.
Dredge the hare with flour and finish with butter.
Serve hot with currant jelly and onion sauce.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Forms the main body of the dish, with lean meat that is cooked through by roasting.
- Bacon slices
- Lines the cavity, adding fat that keeps the lean meat moist and flavourful as it roasts.
- Milk
- Basting liquid that moistens the surface and helps it take on colour as it roasts.
- Flour
- Dusted over the surface, it helps form a crisp, browned crust.
- Butter
- Adds fat that enriches the flavour and promotes golden browning on the finished surface.
The step that matters
Basting with milk during the first part of roasting. Milk contains proteins and sugars that brown, so basting too late or too little can leave the surface pale or uneven. Keeping the surface moist early on also helps prevent it from drying out before the meat is cooked through.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, milk, flour, butter, onion, sauce):
- Coconutfits better
- Avocadofits better
- Raisinfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, milk, flour, butter, onion, sauce. 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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