Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Roast Hare
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Hang the hare for 7 to 8 days after skinning and cleaning.
Stuff the hare with veal forcemeat and sew the skin closed.
Truss the hare by cutting the sinews of the hind legs, pressing them towards the head, and drawing the forelegs back. Pass a skewer through the hind legs, body, and forelegs, securing the shape with string.
Roast
Place the hare in a pan with a little salt and water, and baste frequently. After 15 minutes, pour out the liquid and add 1 pint of milk and beef dripping to the pan.
Baste constantly until the liquid is dried up, then dust the hare with flour and add butter on top.
Cook for 1.5 to 2 hours.
Brown and serve
Brown the hare well, remove the skewers, and serve with rich brown gravy and red currant jelly.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,784 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,759 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Main protein; hanging and slow cooking keep the meat tender and flavourful.
- Veal forcemeat
- Stuffing that adds moisture and richness as the hare cooks.
- Milk
- Forms the basting liquid whose solids brown and add flavour to the pan.
- Beef dripping
- Fat that conducts heat and helps the surface brown evenly.
- Butter
- Adds fat and promotes browning of the finished surface.
- Red currant jelly
- Adds sweetness and acidity to balance the rich meat.
The step that matters
Baste constantly until the liquid is dried up. Milk solids can scorch before they turn golden. Constant basting keeps the surface moist and lets the milk proteins and sugars brown gently into a rich crust rather than burning.
Swap the red currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, milk, beef, flour, butter):
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonfits better
- Red currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, milk, beef, flour, 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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