Name: Ballotines of Hare, with Cherry Salad
Ingredients: hare; forcemeat; stock; supreme sauce or béchamel sauce; liquid aspic; cherry salad; aspic cream

Why it works: Sauce and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Ballotines of Hare, with Cherry Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Bone the legs of the hare and fill them with game forcemeat or a rich mushroom forcemeat mixed with cooked sweetbread or brains.
Sew the legs closed and braise them in stock for at least 1 hour.
Once cold, slice the legs and coat them with supreme or béchamel sauce, then let it set.
Pour pale pink or deep yellow liquid aspic over the set sauce and trim the edges when firm.
Serve on a block of contrasting colored aspic cream, garnished with cherry salad and blocks of aspic jelly.

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.

Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cherry + creamtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together827 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Sauce + cherrytop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together245 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).