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Hare or Rabbit Soup

A hearty soup made from hares, bacon, onions, herbs, and wine, simmered for hours and thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 or Rabbit Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the hares and place them in a pot with bacon, onions, thyme, and parsley.

  2. Add pepper, salt, cloves, mace, and enough water to cover the ingredients.

  3. Stew gently for 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the thyme and parsley before thickening the soup.

  2. Thicken with butter and brown flour, then add red wine.

  3. Boil for a few more minutes and serve with the best parts of the hares.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Hares
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender during the long, gentle stew.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor to the broth as it renders during cooking.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften into the soup base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the brown flour thicken smoothly.
Brown flour
Thickens the soup so it has a fuller body.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Thicken with butter and brown flour. Flour needs fat and heat to thicken without lumps, and it must be cooked briefly so it sets the body of the soup rather than tasting raw.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, thyme, parsley, pepper, clove, butter, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, thyme, parsley, pepper, clove, butter, flour. 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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