Why it works: Butter and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,856 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓
Modern Cookery
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare nearly double the usual quantity of forcemeat.
Line the body of the hare with delicate slices of trimmed bacon.
Sew up the hare and truss it as usual.
Lard the hare if convenient and baste it plentifully with butter while roasting.
Serve with a sauce made from 2 tablespoons of melted currant jelly mixed into ½ pint of rich brown gravy.
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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Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,856 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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