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To Roast Hare

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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

  1. Skin the hare and wash it thoroughly.

  2. Soak the hare in water for 1-2 hours.

  3. If the hare is old, lard it to make it tender, or soak it in vinegar, then wash it well in water.

  4. Stuff the belly with a generous amount of stuffing and sew it up.

  5. Baste with milk until halfway done, then switch to butter.

  6. If blood settles in the neck, soak it in warm water and warm it by the fire, nicking the skin to release the blood.

  7. Keep the hare at a distance from the fire initially.

  8. Serve with 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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Vinegar + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, milk, butter, pepper):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, milk, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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