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Hare Soup

A hearty soup made with hare, beef, ham, vegetables, and seasonings, finished with port wine and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Hare Soup

Why it works: Thyme and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into small pieces and punch the hare.

  2. Mix the flour with the blood and set aside.

  3. Chop the ham and tie the herbs in muslin.

  4. Fry the onions until golden brown.

Simmer the soup

  1. Place the onions in a soup pan with the cut-up hare, beef, water, and seasoning.

  2. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  3. Add the vegetables and simmer for 2 hours longer.

  4. Remove the tender meat, cut it up, and strain the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the liquid to the pan, add the jelly and blended flour and blood, stirring until just boiling.

  2. Add the port wine and shredded meat from the back.

  3. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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, gamey flavour to the soup.
Blood (in the method)
Thickens the soup when blended with flour and stirred until just boiling.
Flour
Thickens the soup, especially when mixed with blood before adding.
Beef
Adds body and savoury meat flavour as it simmers slowly for hours.
Onions
Browning them first adds deeper, sweeter savoury flavour to the broth.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang that balances the rich, gamey meat.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and blood into the soup. Flour and blood thicken as they heat, so the mixture must be stirred while it comes just to the boil. Boiling hard or letting it sit can curdle or lump the blood and leave the texture grainy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, thyme, flour, butter, carrot, onion):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, thyme, flour, butter, carrot, onion. 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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