Why it works: Sauce and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,303 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Hare, Hashed
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the hare into neat slices and set aside.
Boil the bones and trimmings to make stock.
Prepare the brown sauce as directed.
Combine the hare slices with the brown sauce, port or claret, salt, and pepper.
Serve with red-currant jelly.
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.
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Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,303 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Pepper + curranttop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,345 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Sauce + curranttop 35% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together628 recipes
Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, pepper):
- Limefits better
- Lemonfits better
- Mangofits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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