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Grouse and Hare Soup

A hearty soup made from grouse, hare, vegetables, and a forcemeat garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Grouse and Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Wash the grouse and hare, then place them in a saucepan with 6 quarts of cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim the surface.

  3. Let simmer for 1 hour.

  4. Remove the hare and grouse.

  5. Cut the meat from the bones.

  6. Return the bones to the soup.

  7. Simmer for an additional 2 hours.

Prepare the garnishes

  1. Fry the meat in butter until browned, then drain and set aside.

  2. Slice the onions and fry them in the same pan until browned.

  3. Add the onions to the soup.

  4. Mash the livers of the hare and grouse.

  5. Mix with stale bread crumbs, boiled milk, and the unbeaten egg.

  6. Add lemon juice and season with salt and pepper.

  7. Shape into small balls and fry the balls in boiling butter until browned.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain the soup and return it to the saucepan.

  2. Add the fried meat and cooked carrot and turnip.

  3. Mix ground rice with 1 cup of water to a smooth paste and gradually add to the soup.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Let simmer gently for 10 minutes.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grouse
Gives the soup its main meaty flavour as it simmers in the stock.
Hare
Gives the stock a rich, deep meaty flavour and body.
Ground rice
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it a fuller, smoother body.
Egg
Binds the liver mixture so the small balls hold their shape when fried.
Stale bread crumbs
Add bulk and absorb milk, helping the liver mixture hold together.

The step that matters

Adding the ground rice paste. Ground rice must be mixed smoothly with water first and stirred in gradually. Added in lumps, it will clump and thicken unevenly instead of giving the soup a smooth body.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, egg, milk, lemon, pepper, rice):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, egg, milk, lemon, pepper, rice. 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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