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Hare Soup

A stew made with hare, onions, bay leaves, mace, cloves, parsley, basil, thyme, celery, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Place the hare pieces in a stew pan.

  2. Add onions, bay leaves, mace, cloves, parsley, basil, thyme, celery, and enough broth or water to cover the meat.

  3. If using water, add the gravy beef.

Cook and strain

  1. Bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

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

  3. Strain the soup, reserving the best pieces of meat to serve in the tureen.

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 flavour that gives the soup its body.
Onions
Break down during simmering to add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth.
Gravy beef
Adds extra meat and richness to the broth when water is used instead of stock.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour to the broth during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Skimming off the foam after bringing to a boil. Foam carries impurities and proteins that would cloud the broth and taste bitter. Removing it early keeps the soup clear and clean-flavoured for the rest of the simmer.

Swap the mace

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

  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, meat. 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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