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Hare Soup a L’anglaise

A savory hare soup simmered with carrots, onions, celery, port wine, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Hare Soup a L’anglaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped carrot, onions, and celery; fry until light in color.

  3. Add the pieces of hare and brown them.

  4. Sprinkle flour over the browned hare and stir well.

  5. Pour in the port wine and add the bouquet garni, cloves, and mace.

  6. Add the veal stock and bring to a boil.

  7. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 1 hour and 15 minutes, skimming off any fat that rises.

  8. Remove the hare pieces from the sauce and place them on a dish.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Browning and then slow simmering makes the meat tender and gives the soup its rich, savory base.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce as it cooks with the stock.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor, and its acidity balances the rich stock.
Veal stock
Forms the main liquid, supplying savory body and gelatin for a fuller mouthfeel.
Butter
Fat that carries the aromatics and helps the vegetables brown evenly.
Onions
Caramelize lightly in the fat, adding sweetness and aroma to the soup base.

The step that matters

Sprinkle flour over the browned hare and stir well. Flour must be stirred in evenly over the fat and meat so it can coat the pieces and cook out. Dumping it in clumps leaves floury lumps and an uneven, pasty thickening.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, onion, celery, flour, port wine, clove):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, onion, celery, flour, port wine, clove. 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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