Name: Hare Forcemeat
Ingredients: ½ cup stale bread crumbs; ⅓ cup port or claret; 4 ounces finely shredded veal suet; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind; 1 tablespoon chopped shallot; 1 tablespoon lean raw ham; 2 eggs

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hare Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the bread crumbs in port or claret until covered.
In a bowl, mix the soaked crumbs with veal suet, parsley, lemon rind, shallot, and ham.
Add the eggs and mix until well combined.
Use as a filling for hare or other dishes.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,523 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Bread + shallottop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs: Absorb the port or claret and give the forcemeat body and a light, soft texture.
Veal suet: Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich as it cooks.
Eggs: Bind the mixture so it holds together when used as a filling.
Port or claret: Moistens the crumbs and adds a wine flavour to the filling.

“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.