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Hare Pie

A savory pie made with hare, bacon, onions, wine, bread crumbs, and spices, baked with a forcemeat filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 406 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Hare Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the hare

  1. Season the hare pieces with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace.

  2. Place the hare in a jug with the butter, seal it, and set it in boiling water.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Make a forcemeat by mixing bacon, onions, red wine, bread crumbs, winter savory, liver, nutmeg, and egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Raise the pie crust and layer the forcemeat at the bottom.

  2. Add the hare and its juices, cover with the lid, and bake in the oven.

  3. Bake for 1.5 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Nutmeg + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + winter savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Mace + winter savorytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 and flavourful as it cooks slowly in its own juices.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and keeps the meat moist during cooking.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the forcemeat, keeping it moist as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together when sliced, and add richness.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the forcemeat body and a softer, tender texture.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the forcemeat and meat juices.

The step that matters

Setting the hare in boiling water. Starting the sealed jug in boiling water gently cooks the hare and butter together, which keeps the meat moist and builds flavourful juices for the pie.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg, onion, red wine, winter savory, liver):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, onion, red wine, winter savory, liver. 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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