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Hare Soup

A hearty soup made with hare, onions, herbs, and optional gravy beef, thickened with bread crumbs and seasoned with catsup and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Hare Soup

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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the hare and cut it into pieces.

  2. In a stew-pan, combine the hare, onions, bay leaves, mace, cloves, parsley, basil, thyme, celery, and enough water or broth to cover the meat.

  3. If using, add the gravy beef.

Simmer

  1. Bring to a boil, skimming off any scum that rises.

  2. Simmer for 3 hours if the hare is young, longer if it is older.

  3. Strain the soup and set aside the best pieces of hare.

Thicken and serve

  1. Cut the remaining meat into small pieces and pound it with soaked bread crumbs to thicken the soup.

  2. Stir the thickened mixture back into the strained soup, season to taste, and add catsup and port wine.

  3. Serve with fried forcemeat balls if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 rich, gamy flavour that gives the soup its body.
Onions
Break down during the long simmer to add sweetness and depth to the broth.
Soaked bread crumbs (in the method)
Starch that absorbs liquid and thickens the pounded meat into the soup.
Celery
Adds aromatic vegetable flavour to the broth during simmering.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and fruity aroma to finish the soup.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum while bringing to a boil. Scum rising from the meat is coagulated protein and impurities; removing it early keeps the broth clearer and less greasy, and it is easy to forget once the pot is busy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, clove, parsley, basil, thyme, celery, beef):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, parsley, basil, thyme, celery, beef. 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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