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Superlative Hare Soup

A hearty soup made with hare, ham, onions, herbs, beef stock, 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. In a large soup pot, combine the hare joints, ham, onions, mace, thyme, marjoram, parsley, and beef stock.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil and let it simmer for 2 hours, or longer if the hare is old.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain the soup and finely pound the ham and hare meat from the back, legs, and shoulders.

  2. In a stew pan, combine the pounded meat with the strained liquid, the crumb of the French rolls, and port wine.

  3. Simmer on the stove for 20 minutes without boiling.

  4. Season with salt and cayenne, then serve hot.

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.
French rolls
Crumbed rolls thicken the soup and give it a smoother, fuller body.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished soup.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the stock and pounded meat.

The step that matters

Simmer the finished soup without boiling. After the pounded meat and crumbs are added, a rolling boil can break the emulsion of the smooth texture and scorch the bottom, so a gentle simmer keeps the soup even and velvety.

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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