Name: To Roast Hare
Ingredients: 1 hare; water; vinegar; milk; butter; stuffing (made from liver and other ingredients)

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 ↓

To Roast Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Skin the hare and wash it thoroughly.
Soak the hare in water for 1-2 hours.
If the hare is old, lard it to make it tender or soak it in vinegar, then wash it well in water.
Stuff the belly with a flavorful stuffing and sew it up.
Baste with milk until half cooked, then switch to butter.
If blood settles in the neck, soak it in warm water and nick the skin to release it.
Keep the hare at a distance from the fire initially.
Serve with froth, rich gravy, melted butter, and currant-jelly sauce.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + livertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,065 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Vinegar + livertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together345 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,513 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Milk + livertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together288 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).