Skip to main content
Main

Hare Soup

A hearty soup made from hare, onion, anchovies, cloves, mace, salt, cayenne pepper, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Hare Soup

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cut one hare into pieces and split the head in half.

  2. Place the hare pieces in a saucepan with water.

  3. Add chopped onion, anchovies, cloves, mace, salt, and cayenne.

  4. Simmer on low heat for at least 4 hours.

  5. Roast the second hare until half done, then cut into joints.

  6. Add the head, bones, and stuffing of the second hare to the saucepan.

  7. Simmer for another hour, then strain the liquid.

Finish and serve

  1. When ready to serve, add the roast meat and port wine to the soup and warm 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.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Hares
Provide the meat and bones that build the soup's rich, savoury body.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the flavour of the stock.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and a fruity, rich aroma to the finished soup.
Spanish onion
Contributes sweetness and aromatic flavour as it softens into the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer on low heat for at least 4 hours. Gentle, low heat extracts flavour and gelatin from the bones and meat slowly. A rolling boil makes the stock cloudy and can toughen the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, mace, pepper, port wine):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, mace, pepper, 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.

More hare soup recipes

Scotch 7Imitation 3 See all 137 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes