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Hare Larded Au Chevreuil

A hare larded with bacon, marinated in vinegar and aromatics, roasted and served with a tarragon vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Hare Larded Au Chevreuil

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. Remove the head and shoulders from the hare and flatten it with a meat mallet.

  2. Carefully cut the thin skin off the fillets of the back and the prominent parts of the rump.

  3. Lard these parts with small slips of fat bacon.

  4. Marinate the hare in a mixture of vinegar, water, carrots, onion, parsley, bay leaf, garlic, peppercorns, and salt for 2 days.

  5. Remove the hare from the mixture and secure it on a spit with large iron skewers.

Roast and baste

  1. Baste the hare well while roasting in the oven at 400°F (200°C), glazing the larded parts every 3-4 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, reduce 2 tablespoons of tarragon vinegar and add 5-6 tablespoons of plain sauce.

  2. Once it boils, mix in a little glaze, a good amount of butter, and the juice of half a lemon.

  3. Pour the sauce around the hare and serve.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 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
Provides the main meat, which the marinade and larding keep moist and tender during roasting.
Fat bacon
Larded strips melt slowly during roasting, adding moisture and richness to the lean meat.
Vinegar
Its acidity in the marinade helps tenderise the meat and adds a tangy edge.
Butter
Melted into the sauce, it adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture.
Tarragon vinegar
Reduced to concentrate its acidity and aroma, giving the sauce a sharp, herbal flavour.

The step that matters

Basting and glazing during roasting. Lean game dries out quickly in the oven. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist, and the glaze browns and sets on the larded parts, so the meat stays juicy and well coloured.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, carrot, onion, parsley, garlic, tarragon, sauce):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, carrot, onion, parsley, garlic, tarragon, sauce. 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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