Skip to main content
Main

Hare Soup

A hearty soup made from hare, veal broth, Port wine, spices, and thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Hare Soup

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Bone the hare and cut the meat into pieces.

  2. Wrap each piece in a slice of fat bacon and place in a stewpan.

Stew and strain

  1. Add Port wine, allspice, mace, bay leaf, onions, and garlic.

  2. Stew until the meat is tender.

  3. Rub half the meat through a tamis cloth and keep the remainder warm.

  4. Stew the bones with veal broth and the cooking liquid from the hare.

  5. Season with Cayenne pepper and salt, then strain.

Finish the soup

  1. Clear the broth with the egg white and yolk, then strain again.

  2. Add the remaining hare pieces to the cleared soup.

  3. Thicken with a mixture of flour and butter.

  4. Boil for 15 minutes and serve in a tureen.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mace + clovetop 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
Provides the main meat, which gives the soup its body and rich flavour.
Veal broth
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour of the stewed bones.
Onions
Soften during stewing and add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth.
Port wine
Adds acidity and fruity depth that balances the rich meat and broth.
Flour and butter
Form a roux that thickens the soup to a smooth, lightly coated texture.
Egg
Its white and yolk clarify the broth, gathering particles so it turns clear.

The step that matters

Clear the broth with the egg white and yolk. Egg white coagulates as it heats and traps cloudy particles, so the broth clears when strained. Stirring or boiling too hard before straining can break up the clumps and leave the soup cloudy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, allspice, onion, clove, garlic, veal, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, allspice, onion, clove, garlic, veal, 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.

More hare soup recipes

Scotch 7Imitation 3 See all 137 →

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes