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Civet of Hare

A stew of hare pieces cooked with butter, bacon, herbs, mushrooms, flour, wine, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Civet of Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a stewpan, heat the butter and bacon.

  2. Add the hare pieces, sweet herbs, and mushrooms; heat thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Mix flour with water to form a paste, then add to the stewpan.

  2. Season with pepper and pour in the white wine.

  3. Cook gently until done, then serve with a sauce made from the liver.

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. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Forms the main body of the stew and supplies the rich, gamey meat.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and helps brown the hare and bacon at the start.
Bacon
Renders fat and savoury flavour into the pan that carries through the stew.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture that mingles with the cooking juices.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the stew and helps lift the savoury flavours.

The step that matters

Adding the flour paste. Flour mixed with water must be fully smooth before it goes into the hot stewpan, otherwise it clumps. Starch thickens the liquid only as it heats, so the stew needs time to gently simmer after adding it.

“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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