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Puree of Hare Soup

A creamy puree made from roasted hare, ham, onions, herbs, and claret, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

Puree of Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut up the remains of the roasted hare.

  2. In a stew pan, add the ham, hare, onions, mace, stock, and the faggot of herbs.

  3. Simmer for 2 hours or more.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Pull the meat from the bones.

Make the puree

  1. Pound the meat with boiled ham and the crusts of 2 soaked French rolls.

  2. Rub the mixture through a tammy with the claret and enough broth to achieve a creamy consistency.

  3. Place the mixture in a stew pan surrounded by boiling water.

  4. Work in a little butter.

Serve

  1. Serve with sippets.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Basil + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 body for the soup.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that the meat simmers in and extracts flavor from.
French rolls (in the method)
Soaked crusts add starch and bulk, helping thicken the puree.
Claret or port
Adds acidity and fruity depth that balances the rich meat.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, silkier mouthfeel in the finished puree.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a tammy with enough broth. Pressing the cooked meat through a fine sieve breaks it into smooth particles, and adding broth gradually sets the consistency. Too little liquid leaves the puree grainy or stiff.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, thyme, parsley, basil, clove, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, thyme, parsley, basil, clove, butter. 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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