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Hare, Stewed in Port

A hare stew cooked slowly with bacon, port wine, claret, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Hare, Stewed in Port

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Cut the hare into neat pieces: back into sections and each leg in two.

  2. Cut the bacon into strips and lay them on each joint of hare.

  3. In a large sauté pan, arrange the hare joints in a single layer.

Season and stew

  1. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of black pepper, 1 teaspoon of sweet herbs, 1 tablespoon of chopped shallot, and a saltspoonful of grated cloves and nutmeg.

  2. Add a few drops of essence of celery and 2 tablespoons of grated ham.

  3. Pour in equal parts port and claret just to cover the meat.

  4. Cover with a greased sheet of paper and place the lid on the pan.

  5. Add a weight on top and bring to a gentle boil.

  6. Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes, shaking occasionally.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 1 glass of good port, 2 teaspoons of brown roux, and ½ ounce of glaze.

  2. Stir to bring back to a boil and season with salt to taste.

  3. Serve hot on a dish, garnished with small quenelles, force-meat balls, croutons with liver purée, or potato chips.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 becomes tender and rich during the long, slow stew.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that melts into the meat and the cooking liquid.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps flavour and tenderise the meat as it simmers.
Claret
Adds acidity and tannin that help balance the richness and tenderise the meat.
Brown roux
Thickens the cooking liquid into a richer, smoother sauce.
Glaze
Adds concentrated meat flavour and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Keeping the stew at a gentle simmer. A hard boil toughens the proteins in the meat and can break the sauce, so a slow, gentle heat keeps the hare tender and the liquid smooth.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, pepper, shallot, clove, nutmeg, ham):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, pepper, shallot, clove, nutmeg, ham. 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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