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To Make a Hare Soup

A soup made from hare, onions, anchovies, red wine, water, butter, flour, crisped bread, and optional sago.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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To Make a Hare Soup

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Make a Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the hare into small pieces.

  2. In a pot, combine hare pieces, chopped onions, anchovies, red wine, and water.

  3. Send the mixture to the oven to cook.

  4. Scald the liver of the hare with hot water. Pound the liver with a wooden spoon.

Thicken and serve

  1. Work butter into flour.

  2. Stir over low heat.

  3. Add crisped bread soaked in red wine and a little sago if desired.

  4. Serve.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Red wine + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Butter and flour 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

Hare
Provides the main meat and rich, gamey flavour of the soup.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the broth.
Anchovies
Contribute savoury depth that rounds out the broth without a fishy taste.
Butter
Adds richness and, worked with flour, helps thicken the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when worked with butter and stirred over heat.
Crisped bread
Soaks up wine and body, adding texture and thickening the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour over low heat. Flour thickens liquid only when its starch is dispersed and heated gently; cooking over high heat or leaving lumps can scorch the mixture or leave the soup grainy and uneven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red wine, butter, flour, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red wine, butter, flour, bread. 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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