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Hare En Daube

A stew of hare with bacon, herbs, carrots, onions, and calf's feet, simmered in wine and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Hare En Daube

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Cut the hare in half after cleaning it.

  2. Layer seasoned bacon in the bottom of a stew pan.

  3. Place pieces of hare on top of the bacon.

Stew

  1. Tie the parsley bundle with thyme, bay leaves, sweet basil, a clove, and spices.

  2. Add carrots, onions, calf's feet, and bacon pieces to the pan.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, and add parsley roots.

  4. Moisten with broth and white wine.

  5. Cover with buttered paper and seal the pan.

  6. Stew gently for 3 hours.

Finish the sauce

  1. Remove from heat, drain the hare, and skim the liquid.

  2. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve and let it cool.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the hare and enriches the cooking liquid.
Calf's feet
Release gelatin during slow cooking, giving the braising liquid body and a silky texture.
White wine
Adds acidity that helps break down connective tissue and brightens the flavor of the stew.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding sweetness and depth to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 3 hours. Low, slow heat lets connective tissue break down into gelatin, making the meat tender and the liquid rich. A hard boil toughens the meat and clouds the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, pepper, thyme, basil, clove, carrot, white wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, pepper, thyme, basil, clove, carrot, white 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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