Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Hare

A stew made from hare meat, bones, sweet herbs, onions, port wine, bacon, salt, mace, and a pounded clove.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mace and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Stewed Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gravy

  1. Cut the hare meat into small pieces.

  2. Make a strong gravy with the hare bones, sweet herbs, and chopped onions.

  3. Strain the gravy and return it to the pot.

Stew

  1. Add the hare meat, port wine, bacon, salt, mace, and pounded clove.

  2. Cover the pot and let it stew for 2 hours.

  3. If the gravy reduces too much, add a little more 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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Port wine + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Port wine + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together695 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare meat
Forms the main body of the stew, becoming tender during long, gentle cooking.
Hare bones
Release gelatin and flavour into the gravy, giving it body and richness.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy as they soften.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, acidity and deep fruity aroma to the stewing liquid.
Bacon
Contributes fat and salty, smoky flavour that seasons the meat as it stews.

The step that matters

Covering the pot and stewing for 2 hours. Gentle, covered simmering keeps moisture in and slowly breaks down the tough connective tissue in hare, so the meat turns tender rather than dry or stringy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, port wine, mace, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, port wine, mace, clove. 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

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes