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To Roast Hare

A hare stuffed with suet, breadcrumbs, liver, herbs, and spices, roasted and served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Roast Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Wash and wipe the hare with a clean cloth.

  2. In a bowl, mix the suet, bread crumbs, chopped liver, parsley, lemon peel, and winter savory, then season the mixture with pepper, coarse sea salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Moisten the stuffing with the egg.

  4. Fill the belly of the hare with the stuffing and sew it up.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the hare over a good fire for one hour, basting it with butter.

  2. Dust the hare with a little flour before serving to create a nice froth.

  3. Serve with gravy in the dish and currant jelly on the side.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Winter savory + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Parsley + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together863 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Melts during roasting to add richness and moisture to the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the fats and juices, giving the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Liver
Adds deep, savoury flavour to the stuffing.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when filled and roasted.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting browning and a rich flavour on the surface.

The step that matters

Roast the hare over a good fire for one hour, basting it with butter. Lean game meat dries out easily. Regular basting with butter adds fat and moisture to the surface, while steady heat cooks the stuffed cavity through without scorching the outside.

“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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