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Hare, Hashed

A dish of sliced hare simmered in brown sauce with port or claret, seasoned with salt, pepper, and served with red‑currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,303 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Hare, Hashed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the hare into neat slices and set aside.

  2. Boil the bones and trimmings to make stock.

  3. Prepare the brown sauce as directed.

  4. If economy is a concern, use equal parts of stock and stout instead of wine.

Finish and serve

  1. Season the sauce to taste, then add the hare slices.

  2. Heat until thoroughly hot, then serve with red-currant jelly.

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. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + curranttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Sauce + curranttop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together628 recipes

Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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
Provides the main meat, which is already cooked and only needs gentle reheating.
Brown sauce
Supplies a rich, savoury coating that keeps the slices moist as they heat.
Port or claret
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Red-currant jelly
Adds sweetness and tartness that balances the rich meat and sauce.

The step that matters

Heat until thoroughly hot. The hare is already cooked, so reheating must be gentle and complete. Holding it at a steady heat in the sauce keeps the meat moist and tender, while skipping this step leaves the dish cold in the centre.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper. 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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