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Hare Soup

A hearty soup made with hare, vegetables, stock, and seasonings.

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

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Wipe the hare with a clean damp cloth.

  2. Cut the hare into small joints.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the hare, sliced vegetables, and herbs to the pan.

  3. Fry until browned.

  4. Add the stock, salt, and peppercorns.

  5. Simmer gently for 3 hours.

  6. Strain the soup.

  7. Remove the meat from the bones.

  8. Pound the meat well in a mortar.

  9. Rub the meat through a fine sieve.

  10. Return the meat and the stock to the stewpan.

Finish and serve

  1. When boiling, add the wine and the cornflour mixed smoothly together. Stir.

  2. Cook for a few minutes.

  3. Season to taste.

  4. Serve.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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 and sieved, body to the soup.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and browns the hare and vegetables at the start.
Cornflour
Starch that thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly bodied soup.
Port wine
Adds acidity and sweetness that rounds out the rich, gamey stock.
Second stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the hare and vegetables.

The step that matters

Adding the cornflour. Cornflour must be mixed smoothly with cold liquid before it goes into the boiling soup, otherwise it clumps. Once added, it needs a few minutes of simmering so the starch swells and fully thickens the soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, thyme, port wine):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, thyme, 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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