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Gravy for Roast Hare

A savory gravy made from hare meat, ox spleen, onion, and spices, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Gravy for Roast Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat and milt into small pieces.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the meat, milt, water, onion, cloves, salt, and pepper.

Make the gravy

  1. Cook gently for 3 to 4 hours, then strain the mixture.

  2. Melt the butter in a clean saucepan, stir in the flour, and brown it.

  3. Add the strained gravy to the browned flour, stir until it boils, and season to taste.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Skirt of beef
Breaks down during long gentle cooking to give the stock body and rich meaty flavour.
Milt (ox spleen)
Adds savoury depth and body to the stock during slow cooking.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness and fat to the gravy base.
Flour
Browned in the butter, it thickens the strained stock into a smooth gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the butter. Cooking the butter and flour together until nutty brown develops flavour and colour, and stirring prevents lumps and scorching. Adding stock too early or too pale leaves the gravy tasting raw and floury.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, onion, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, onion, pepper. 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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