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Hare Soup

A stew of hare, onions, herbs, and ham, thickened with flour and butter, seasoned with cayenne, salt, 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: 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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine the hare pieces, onions, sweet herbs, bay leaf, mace, cloves, peppercorns, ham, and mushrooms in a large pot.

  2. Cover with brown second stock and stew until the hare is tender.

  3. Remove the best pieces of meat for later.

  4. Discard the bones.

  5. Pass the remaining meat and stock through a fine sieve until smooth.

  6. Return the mixture to the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. If it is not thick enough, add a little flour and butter to thicken.

  2. Season with cayenne pepper, salt, and port wine.

  3. Add the reserved pieces of meat.

  4. Skim off any grease before serving.

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 + 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. Clove + peppertop 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

Hare
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing and flavors the stock.
Onions
Add sweetness and body to the stock as they soften during stewing.
Ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the stock as it cooks.
Flour and butter
Thicken the sieved stock into a smooth, rich soup body.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and fruity depth to the seasoned soup.

The step that matters

Passing the stock through a fine sieve until smooth. Pushing the cooked meat and vegetables through a fine sieve breaks them down and releases starch and body into the liquid, giving a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, thyme, parsley, clove, ham, mushroom, pepper. 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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