Name: To Roast Hare
Ingredients: 1 hare, skinned and cleaned; ½ cup lard (if old); ½ cup vinegar (optional); Stuffing: liver of the hare, 1 anchovy, 2 ounces fat bacon, 1 ounce suet, herbs (to taste), ¼ teaspoon pepper, ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt, a pinch of nutmeg, 1 small onion, 1 cup bread crumbs, 1 egg; Milk (for basting); Butter (for basting); Currant jelly (for serving)

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Roast Hare

Ingredients

1 hare, skinned and cleaned
½ cup lard (if old)
½ cup vinegar (optional)
Stuffing: liver of the hare, 1 anchovy, 2 ounces fat bacon, 1 ounce suet, herbs (to taste), ¼ teaspoon pepper, ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt, a pinch of nutmeg, 1 small onion, 1 cup bread crumbs, 1 egg
Milk (for basting)
Butter (for basting)
Currant jelly (for serving)

Directions

Wash the hare thoroughly and soak it 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 afterward.
Stuff the hare's belly with the prepared stuffing and sew it up.
Baste the hare with milk until it is half cooked, then switch to basting with butter.
If blood has settled in the neck, soak it in warm water and warm it by the fire, nicking the skin to let it out.
Keep the hare at a distance from the fire at first.
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.

Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,260 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,330 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Liver + anchovytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together199 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, liver, anchovy, pepper, onion, bread, egg):

Parsleyfits better
Garlicfits better
Capersfits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, liver, anchovy, pepper, onion, bread, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.