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Soup

Imitation Hare Soup

A soup made with beef, turnip, onion, carrot, and seasonings, finished with flour, butter, and flavorings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Imitation Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup base

  1. Cut the meat into pieces, dip in seasoned flour, and brown in the butter.

  2. Brown the onion, which should be studded with cloves.

  3. Remove the meat and onion, then brown the flour.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add the water and bring to a boil, then return the meat and vegetables.

  2. Simmer gently for 1½ to 2 hours.

  3. Strain the soup and return it to the saucepan.

  4. Add flavorings and the following forcemeat balls.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Red currant + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Gravy beef
Provides the main meaty flavor and body as it simmers into the soup.
Flour
Browned flour thickens the soup and adds a deeper, nutty color.
Butter
Carries the browning of the meat, onion and flour and adds richness.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang that balances the savory broth.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it browns in the butter.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Flour browned in fat develops nutty flavor and color, but it can scorch quickly. Stir constantly over moderate heat and stop once it reaches a rich brown, since burnt flour turns bitter and cannot be fixed.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, port wine, flour, butter, ketchup, sauce):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Lemonfits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, port wine, flour, butter, ketchup, sauce. 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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