Skip to main content
Main

Superlative Hare Soup

A hearty soup made from hare, ham, onions, herbs, beef stock, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Superlative Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine hare joints, ham, onions, mace, thyme, marjoram, parsley, and beef stock in a large soup pot.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil and let it stew for 2 hours, or longer if the hare is old.

  3. Strain the soup and finely pound the ham and hare meat from the back, legs, and shoulders.

Finish and serve

  1. In a stew pan, combine the pounded meat with the strained liquid, crumbled rolls, and port wine.

  2. Simmer on the stove for 20 minutes, then rub through a sieve.

  3. Heat again until very hot, but do not boil.

  4. Season with salt and cayenne, and serve immediately.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 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

Hare
Provides the main meat flavor and, once pounded, body to the soup.
French rolls
Thicken the soup as they soak up liquid and break down when rubbed through a sieve.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the finished soup.
Ham
Adds savory, salty depth and meaty flavor to the stock.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic flavor as they cook into the stock.

The step that matters

Heat again without boiling. Boiling a soup after it has been puréed and thickened can cause it to break, scorch on the bottom, and turn grainy, so it should only be heated until very hot.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, thyme, marjoram, parsley, beef, port wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, thyme, marjoram, parsley, beef, port wine. 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

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes