Skip to main content
Main

‘Pain’ of Hare, Poivrade-sauce

A baked loaf of hare meat mixed with bacon, aromatics, panada, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg 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 ↓

‘Pain’ of Hare, Poivrade-sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and aromatics

  1. Trim the sinew and hard parts from the hare meat and cut it into small squares.

  2. Cut fat bacon into squares.

  3. Mix the hare meat with half its volume of fat bacon.

  4. Chop the onion.

  5. Sauté the chopped onion in a frying pan with some rasped fat bacon, bay leaf, and aromatics.

  6. Add the hare and bacon mixture to the pan.

  7. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  8. Cook on a brisk fire until set.

Make the liver and glaze

  1. Fry the hare's liver in slices for a few minutes.

  2. Add the liver to the pan.

  3. Pour in the white wine.

  4. Reduce quickly to a glaze.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Remove the bay leaf and aromatics.

  7. Let the mixture cool.

Bind and fill the mold

  1. Pound the mixture into a paste.

  2. Gradually mix in a third volume of panada.

  3. Add 4-5 egg yolks, one at a time.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  5. Work it for two minutes with a spoon to smooth it.

  6. Test a small part in a mold in the oven to check consistency.

  7. Butter a cylindrical mold and fill the mold with the preparation.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare meat
Provides the main body and flavour of the loaf once cooked and pounded.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the loaf moist and carries flavour through the mixture.
Hare's liver
Adds rich, deep flavour and helps give the mixture its character.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
Panada
Adds body and helps keep the loaf tender and moist.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture until set on a brisk fire. Cooking too long or too hot can toughen the meat and dry the loaf, while stopping too early leaves it loose. The meat should just set so the later egg yolks and panada bind into a smooth, tender texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, nutmeg, liver, white wine, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, nutmeg, liver, white wine, egg. 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