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Hare Soup

A hearty stew made with hare, bacon, vegetables, and spices, simmered in water and optionally finished with wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Hare Soup

Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 base

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the flour and bacon, stirring until lightly browned.

  3. Add the hare pieces and stir until set.

  4. Pour in the water and add onions, celery, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, mace, and cloves.

Simmer and finish

  1. Bring to a boil, season with salt and pepper, and let simmer until the hare is cooked, about 1 hour for a young hare or 2 hours for an older one.

  2. Remove the best pieces of hare.

  3. Pound the meat from the inferior pieces in a mortar.

  4. Remove the bones.

  5. Return the pounded meat to the soup.

  6. Strain the soup through a tammy.

  7. Boil for 10 minutes.

  8. Serve.

  9. Optionally, add a glass of wine.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 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. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melts with the flour to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the butter and bacon fat.
Streaked bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor as it browns with the flour.
Hare
Provides the main meat, whose flesh breaks down into the soup during long simmering.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savory flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmering the hare until cooked. Cooking time depends on the hare's age, and a young hare cooks much faster than an older one. Checking for tenderness prevents tough meat or overcooked, dry pieces.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, onion, celery, parsley, thyme, 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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