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Hare Pie

A savory pie made with hare, bacon, herbs, and a thickened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hare Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the hare

  1. Clean the hare and cut it into pieces.

  2. Coat the pieces with bacon, herbs, shallots, beaten spices, pepper, and salt.

Stew and assemble

  1. Stew the hare with Port wine and veal broth until three-quarters cooked.

  2. Transfer the hare to a deep dish with some of the cooking liquid and forcemeat.

  3. Let the pie cool.

  4. Cover the pie with puff pastry.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until tender.

  2. Strain the remaining liquid.

  3. Season the liquid.

  4. Thicken the liquid with flour and water.

  5. Reduce the sauce.

  6. Pour the thickened sauce into the pie before serving.

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. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Shallot + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + vealtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing and baking.
Bacon fat
Adds moisture and richness, basting the lean hare meat as it cooks.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the cooking liquid that becomes the sauce.
Veal broth
Supplies the liquid for stewing and gelatin-rich body for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the strained cooking liquid into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that seals and browns over the pie.

The step that matters

Reduce the sauce. Strained liquid is thin, and reducing it concentrates flavour before thickening. Adding flour to an unreduced or boiling liquid can cause lumps, so it should be stirred smoothly and cooked until it no longer tastes of raw flour.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, port wine, veal, flour):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Turnipfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, port wine, veal, flour. 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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