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Lievre Farci, Etouffe

A hare stuffed with a mixture of poultry, mushrooms, and herbs, then braised with wine and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Lievre Farci, Etouffe

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 stuffing

  1. Prepare the hare by removing the innards, washing, and drying it.

  2. Cut out some flesh from the hare, clean and chop the liver and heart.

  3. Chop the cooked poultry or game, mushrooms, shallots, and hare flesh.

  4. In a bowl, combine the chopped ingredients with breadcrumbs, aromatic seasoning, parsley, and chives.

  5. Moisten the mixture with the egg.

  6. Stuff the mixture into the hare and truss it securely.

  7. Lard the breast and sides of the hare with strips of larding bacon.

Braise the hare

  1. Slice the lean bacon, carrot, and onion.

  2. Place the sliced bacon, carrot, and onion in a sauté pan with cloves and bouquet garni.

  3. Add the hare to the pan, moisten with wine and stock, cover with buttered paper, and braise in a 350°F (175°C) oven for two hours, basting occasionally.

  4. In the last half-hour, add the heated brown sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the hare, take out the skewers and string, and place it on a hot dish.

  2. Strain the sauce into a saucepan, skim off the fat, season with pepper and salt, and simmer for a few minutes.

  3. Pour the sauce over the hare or serve it separately in a sauceboat.

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. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chive + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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, and its lean flesh becomes tender through slow braising.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when sliced and served.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the stuffing a light, cohesive texture.
Mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy flavour and moisture to the stuffing.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the braising liquid.
Lean bacon
Releases fat and savoury flavour into the pan as the hare braises.

The step that matters

Braise gently and baste with the lid-style paper in place. Slow, moist heat breaks down the connective tissue in the lean hare; if the oven runs too hot or the liquid dries out, the meat toughens and dries before it becomes tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, egg, parsley, chive, carrot, clove, shallot):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Welsh onionfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, egg, parsley, chive, carrot, clove, shallot. 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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