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Clear Hare Soup

A clear soup made from hare, beef shin, vegetables, herbs, spices, and egg whites, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Clear Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the marrow from the shin of beef and cut it into pieces.

  2. Place the pieces in a saucepan with the water and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim carefully as it boils.

  4. Add the vegetables, herbs, and spices.

  5. Continue boiling gently for two hours.

Add the hare

  1. Punch the hare.

  2. Cut it into joints.

  3. Add it to the stock.

  4. Let it boil for another hour and a half.

  5. Remove the best pieces of hare flesh and set them aside.

  6. Return the bones to the saucepan.

  7. Allow to boil for another two hours.

Clarify and strain

  1. Strain through a fine sieve or cloth.

  2. Set aside to cool.

  3. Once cool, remove the fat from the top.

  4. Put the soup back into a saucepan.

  5. Add the egg whites and shells.

  6. Stir until it boils.

  7. Simmer until clear.

  8. Strain again.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites and shells
Bind to fine particles and rise to the top, collecting cloudiness so the stock turns clear.
Hare
Gives the soup its main meaty flavour and body as it simmers into the stock.
Shin of beef
Its marrow and connective tissue add richness and body to the stock.
Water
Extracts flavour from the bones, meat and vegetables to form the base stock.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg whites. Stir gently until the mixture first boils, then let it simmer undisturbed. Stirring after the egg whites set breaks up the raft that traps cloudy particles, leaving the soup murky.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, clove, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, clove, egg. 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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