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Hare Marinade

A hare marinated in onion, bay leaves, peppercorns, cloves, claret, vinegar, and black currant jelly, then simmered with its own gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and black currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 40 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Hare Marinade

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Place the best parts of the hare in an earthen vessel.

  2. Add the chopped onion, bay leaves, bruised peppercorns, bruised cloves, claret, and vinegar.

  3. Turn the pieces to coat and marinate for 12 hours.

Make the gravy

  1. Make gravy from the remaining hare parts.

  2. Season the gravy well until thick as cream.

  3. Remove the joints from the marinate.

  4. Dry the joints.

  5. Place the joints in the gravy.

  6. Boil down the marinate in a saucepan until reduced by half.

  7. Add the reduced marinate to the gravy.

  8. Rub some meat through the gravy for thickness.

  9. Season the gravy, ensuring the vinegar flavor is balanced.

  10. Stir in the black currant jelly and port.

  11. Cover the gravy.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with croutons or quenelles.

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 + black curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + black curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Clove + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the main meat, which is flavoured by the marinade and cooked in the gravy.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour to the marinade, helping to tenderise the meat.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity to the marinade and gravy, balancing the richness of the meat.
Black currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity body that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Port
Adds sweetness, depth and aroma to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Season the gravy, ensuring the vinegar flavor is balanced. Vinegar's sharpness is strong and can dominate a reduced sauce. Tasting and adjusting salt, sweetness and acidity together keeps the gravy balanced rather than sour.

Swap the black currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, clove, vinegar, tomato):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Black currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, vinegar, tomato. 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.

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