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Hare with Gravy

A hare served with a thickened gravy made from its own neck and inferior parts, seasoned with celery seed and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 114 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Hare with Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gravy

  1. Prepare the stock with vegetables and add a pinch of celery seed if needed.

  2. Make the gravy from the hare's neck and inferior parts a day in advance.

  3. Tie the jar closely.

  4. Place the jar in a saucepan of boiling water, covering it.

  5. Keep the water boiling for 2-3 hours.

  6. Strain the gravy.

  7. Squeeze the bag to extract flavor.

  8. Season to taste.

  9. Thicken the gravy with arrowroot or brown roux until it reaches the consistency of good cream.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the gravy over the hare.

  2. Brush the hare with a little thin glaze.

  3. Garnish with small forcemeat balls fried until rich brown.

  4. Serve extra gravy and melted fruit jelly on the side.

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. Celery + arrowroottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together114 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Arrowroot + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Celery + curranttop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the main meat and the rich flavour that the gravy is built from.
Good stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy and carries the vegetable flavour.
Arrowroot or brown roux
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the meat instead of running off.
Thin glaze
Adds a glossy sheen and light flavour to the outside of the hare.
Fruit jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the rich, savoury gravy.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling for 2-3 hours. The jar is cooked gently in boiling water for a long time so the meat and bones release their flavour and collagen slowly. If the water drops off the boil for long, the gravy will be weaker and less rich.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, arrowroot):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, arrowroot. 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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