Skip to main content
Main

Jugged Hare

A stew of hare and beef simmered with onions, herbs, and allspice, served with red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Jugged Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Wash and joint the hare.

  2. Dredge the hare with flour and fry until nicely browned.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the hare, beef cut into small pieces, onions, herbs, and allspice into a stone jar.

  2. Cover the jar tightly and simmer for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Just before serving, add the forcemeat balls.

  4. Serve with red currant 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.

  1. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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 body of the dish and, cooked slowly, becomes tender and rich.
Gravy beef
Breaks down during long simmering to add body and savoury depth to the liquid.
Flour
Coats the hare so it browns well when fried, adding colour and a light crust.
Onions
Soften and sweeten during simmering, adding flavour to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Cover the jar tightly and simmer. A tight seal keeps moisture in so the meat cooks in its own juices, while gentle simmering over several hours breaks down tough connective tissue. Boiling hard would toughen the meat and drive off liquid.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, clove, pepper, allspice, flour):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, clove, pepper, allspice, flour. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes