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Hare Soup

A soup made from hare, mutton bones, ham or bacon, onion, herbs, water, anchovy, soy sauce, cayenne pepper, and fried forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Hare Soup

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Cut the hare into pieces and place them in a soup pot.

  2. Add the mutton bones, ham or bacon, onion, and sweet herbs.

  3. Pour in 2 quarts of water and let it stew gently until the meat is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the liquid and bring it to a boil.

  2. Stir in the chopped anchovy, soy sauce, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Serve with small fried forcemeat balls for added flavor.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Mutton + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Onion + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Mutton + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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 and rich, gamey flavor that forms the body of the soup.
Mutton shank bones
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the water during slow stewing, giving the broth body.
Anchovy
Adds deep savory, umami notes that enrich the broth without tasting distinctly fishy.
Soy sauce
Contributes salty, savory depth and umami to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Stewing until the meat is tender. Gentle simmering lets collagen in the bones and connective tissue break down slowly. Boiling hard toughens the meat proteins and can leave the broth cloudy and greasy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, ham, anchovy, sauce, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, ham, anchovy, sauce, pepper. 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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