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Gateau De Leveaut, or Hare Cake

A hare meat cake baked with eggs, butter, spices, and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Gateau De Leveaut, or Hare Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove the thin skin from the hare meat and shred it finely.

  2. Chop the meat and spread it on a clean surface.

  3. Add grated nutmeg, pounded spice, diced truffles, pepper, salt, and chopped herbs.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the whole eggs and yolks together, then mix them into the meat mixture.

  2. Melt the butter gently and mix it into the meat mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a stewpan with slices of bacon and pour in the meat preparation.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1.5 hours.

  3. Let it cool in the stewpan, then dip in hot water and turn out onto a dish.

  4. Slice thinly and arrange on a plate, garnished with savory jelly.

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 + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hare meat
Forms the bulk of the dish, giving the sliced cake its substance and meaty structure.
Eggs
Bind the meat mixture and help it set firm as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the cooked meat tender.
Truffles
Contribute a concentrated earthy aroma to the meat mixture.

The step that matters

Baking in a slow oven. Eggs set into a firm, sliceable cake when heated gently; high heat would toughen the meat and cause the eggs to curdle and weep, leaving a dry or porous texture.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, pepper, egg, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, pepper, egg, butter. 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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