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Hare Civet

A braised hare dish simmered in beef stock, Madeira wine, herbs, and a sauce of plain sauce, liver, nutmeg, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hare Civet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Remove the legs and shoulders from the hare and cut the back into pieces.

  2. Lard the pieces with thick slips of bacon and ham.

  3. Blanch the larded hare in boiling water for one minute.

Cook the hare

  1. Simmer the hare gently in beef stock, Madeira, fine herbs, and bay leaf until cooked through.

  2. Remove the hare and place it on a serving dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add 3-4 tablespoons of plain sauce to the cooking liquid and reduce it to a good thickness.

  2. Strain the sauce into another pot.

  3. Fry and finely mince the liver, then add it to the sauce with nutmeg and lemon juice.

  4. Heat the sauce and pour it over the hare before serving.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ham + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Beef + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,495 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Ham + livertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Beef + livertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, gentle simmering in liquid.
Bacon and ham
Lardons add fat and savoury flavour that keep the lean hare meat moist during cooking.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the cooking liquid, which reduces into the sauce.
Plain sauce
Adds body and thickness to the cooking liquid as it reduces into the final sauce.
Liver of hare
Enriches the sauce with richness and body once cooked and finely minced into it.

The step that matters

Reducing the sauce to a good thickness. Reduction concentrates flavour and thickens the liquid through evaporation. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin and watery, while reducing too far makes it salty and overly intense.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, madeira wine, sauce, liver, nutmeg):

  1. Applefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Orangefits less well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, madeira wine, sauce, liver, nutmeg. 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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