Skip to main content
Main

Jugged Hare

A hare cooked in a jug with water, lemon, herbs, and onion, served with a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Jugged Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the hare thoroughly and cut it into serving pieces.

  2. Place the hare pieces in a stone jar with the steak, ham, thyme, marjoram, lemon peel, and onion.

  3. Add water and lemon juice to the jar.

  4. Tightly cover the jar with a piece of bladder.

Steam

  1. Lay hay in the bottom of a saucepan.

  2. Place the jar on top of the hay.

  3. Fill the saucepan with water up to 2 inches from the jar's top.

  4. Alternatively, use a steamer to cook the jar.

  5. Boil the water for 3 hours.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. After cooking, strain the gravy.

  2. Remove the onion from the gravy.

  3. Skim off the fat from the gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with flour.

  5. Season the gravy with pepper and salt.

  6. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  7. Serve the hare pieces in a deep dish.

  8. Pour the sauce over the hare pieces.

  9. For a richer flavor, substitute stout for water.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Lemon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 through long, moist cooking in the sealed jar.
Lean rump steak
Adds meaty juices that enrich the gravy as it cooks.
Fat ham or bacon
Adds savoury fat and smoky flavour to the meat and gravy.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aroma into the cooking liquid as it simmers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps soften the meat.

The step that matters

Fill the saucepan to the correct water level. The sealed jar must cook gently in steam or simmering water, not be submerged. Gentle heat keeps the lean hare moist and tender, and the bladder cover keeps the liquid in the jar.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, lemon, thyme, marjoram, clove, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, lemon, thyme, marjoram, clove, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes