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Hare, Roasted

Roasted hare cooked with butter, onion, wine, lemon, herbs, stock, and served with forcemeat balls and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,150 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Hare, Roasted

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Brown the hare

  1. Heat 1 oz (¼ cup) of butter in a frying pan.

  2. Fry the hare pieces until brown.

  3. Transfer the hare to a stew jar.

Braise

  1. Add salt, onion, wine, lemon juice, peppercorns, herbs, and hot stock.

  2. Cover the jar.

  3. Cook in a 350 °F (175 °C) oven for about 3 hours.

  4. If the oven is too hot, place the jar in a baking tin surrounded by boiling water or in a saucepan of boiling water on the stove.

Make the gravy

  1. About 30 minutes before serving, knead the remaining 1 oz (¼ cup) of butter with the flour.

  2. Stir the butter‑flour mixture into the stock.

  3. Add the other glass of wine.

  4. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

  5. Strain the gravy.

Prepare the forcemeat and serve

  1. Make small balls of forcemeat.

  2. Fry the forcemeat balls in hot butter or fat.

  3. Drain the balls well.

  4. Serve the hare on a hot dish.

  5. Arrange the forcemeat balls around the base.

  6. Serve red currant jelly separately.

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Clove + red curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  3. Lemon + red curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Hare
Lean meat that becomes tender and flavourful through slow, covered braising.
Butter
Adds richness and browning when frying, and enriches the gravy.
Flour
Kneaded with butter, it thickens the stock into a smooth gravy.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the rich meat and gravy.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid that moistens the meat and forms the base of the gravy.

The step that matters

Keep the braising liquid at a gentle simmer. A hot oven or rapid boil can toughen the meat and reduce the liquid too fast. Gentle, covered heat lets connective tissue soften slowly while the meat stays moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, clove, wine, lemon, flour, red currant):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, clove, wine, lemon, flour, red currant. 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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