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Hare Soup

A stew of hare, ham, celery, onions, herbs, wine, and water, finished with soy sauce, ketchup, cayenne, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Hare Soup

Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Place the hare pieces in a jug with the ham, celery, sliced onions, sweet herbs, red wine, and water.

  2. Stew the mixture, covered, for 2 to 3 hours until the meat is tender.

  3. Strain the soup and remove the meat from the bones.

Finish the soup

  1. Pound the meat in a mortar and add it back to the soup until it reaches the desired thickness.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil and stir in the soy sauce, ketchup, cayenne pepper, salt, and a little sugar.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Ketchup + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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 becomes tender and thickens the soup when pounded.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften into the stock.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Stewing until tender. Hare is a lean, mature meat with connective tissue that only softens after long, gentle, covered simmering. Stopping early leaves it tough, so the meat must be checked for tenderness before straining.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, celery, red wine, sauce, ketchup, pepper, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, celery, red wine, sauce, ketchup, pepper, sugar. 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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