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Superlative Hare Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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. Place the hare joints and ham in a large soup pot with the onions, mace, thyme, marjoram, parsley, and beef stock.

  2. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil.

  3. Let it stew for 2 hours, or longer if the hare is old.

  4. Strain the soup.

Prepare the meat and finish

  1. Finely pound the ham and hare meat.

  2. Combine the meat with the strained liquid, the crumb of the French rolls, and port wine in a stew pan.

  3. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Rub through a sieve.

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

  6. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  7. 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 flavour and, once pounded, body to the soup.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the meat base of the soup.
French rolls
Their crumb thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, velvety body.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and rich, fruity aroma to the finished soup.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.

The step that matters

Heat again until very hot, but do not boil. Reheating gently keeps the smooth, thickened texture from breaking and prevents the port's delicate aroma from cooking off. Boiling can also make a rubbed, starch-thickened soup separate or turn grainy.

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.

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