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Sauce

Liver Sauce for Hare or Roast Rabbit

A savory liver sauce made with hare or rabbit liver, gravy, shallot, potherbs, vinegar, wine, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Liver and veal match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 392 recipes. Both carry enoic acid, which smells butter, cheesy. The science ↓

Liver Sauce for Hare or Roast Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Stew the liver in good gravy until tender.

  2. Chop the liver finely with shallot, potherbs, chili vinegar, port wine, and currant jelly (for hare) or white wine (for rabbit).

Make the sauce

  1. Alternatively, pound the solid ingredients and mix them into the gravy to thicken, then add vinegar and wine.

  2. For another method, steep the roll crumb in port wine, heat with butter, beat smooth, and add pepper, salt, jelly, and vinegar.

  3. Let it boil and serve hot.

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. Liver + vealtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  2. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Beef + rabbittop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Vinegar + port winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Forms the body of the sauce and gives it its rich, savoury flavour.
Good gravy
Provides liquid and meaty flavour, and carries the other ingredients into a sauce.
Penny roll crumb
Soaks up liquid and thickens the sauce to a smooth texture.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and wine.
Chili vinegar
Adds acidity and sharp heat that cut through the richness of the liver.
Butter
Adds fat and smoothness, giving the sauce a rounder mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Beating the roll crumb smooth. If the crumb is not fully soaked and beaten, it stays lumpy and the sauce will have a grainy texture rather than a smooth one.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, beef, veal, rabbit, shallot, vinegar, port wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, beef, veal, rabbit, shallot, vinegar, port wine. 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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