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A Hare Soup

A soup made from hare, veal, mace, onions, anchovies or herring, morels, water, sago, and red wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,078 recipes. Both carry eugenol, which smells clove, spicy. The science ↓

A Hare Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the stock

  1. Combine the hare, veal, mace, salt, onions, anchovies or herring, morels, and water in a jug.

  2. Place the jug in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture into a stewpan.

Finish the soup

  1. Boil the sago until cooked and add it to the soup.

  2. Scald the liver, rub it through a sieve, and add it to the soup along with the sago.

  3. Heat the soup gently and stir in the red wine, but do not let it boil.

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. Mace + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  2. Onion + red winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Mace + red winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 flavour and body for the soup.
Veal knuckle
Adds gelatin and richness, giving the stock body and a silky mouthfeel.
Sago
Thickens the soup as its starch gelatinises when cooked.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Keep the soup from boiling once the wine is added. Boiling after the wine is stirred in can drive off its aroma and alcohol and make the soup taste harsh. Gentle heating keeps the flavour fresh and the texture smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, red wine):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, red 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.

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