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Superlative Hare Soup

A hearty soup made with hare, ham, onions, herbs, beef stock, and port wine, finished with crumbled rolls.

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. Combine hare joints, ham, onions, mace, thyme, marjoram, parsley, and beef stock in a large soup pot.

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

  3. Strain the soup.

Finish the soup

  1. Finely pound the ham and meat from the hare's back, legs, and shoulders.

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

  3. Simmer on the stove for 20 minutes.

  4. Rub through a sieve.

  5. Heat again until very hot, but do not boil.

  6. Season with salt and cayenne.

  7. Serve immediately.

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
Crumbled bread thickens the soup and gives it a smoother, more velvety body.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour that rounds out the rich meat broth.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of all the other ingredients.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury meatiness to the stock during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Heat again until very hot, but do not boil. Boiling the soup after the port and pounded meat are added can make it separate and turn grainy, and can dull the wine's flavour. Gentle heating keeps it smooth and well flavoured.

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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