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Hare, Rabbit, or Partridge Soup

A hearty soup made from hare, rabbit, or partridge, simmered with vegetables, spices, wine, and thickened with forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Hare, Rabbit, or Partridge Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Cut off the legs and shoulders of the hare and divide the body crossways.

  2. Stew the pieces gently in 3 quarts of water with carrot, onion, cloves, mace, black peppercorns, and sweet herbs until tender, about 3 hours.

  3. Make forcemeat balls while the hare is cooking.

Make the soup

  1. Remove the meat from the back and upper leg joints.

  2. Cut the meat into bite‑sized pieces.

  3. Set the meat aside.

  4. Mince the remaining meat.

  5. Pound the minced meat with butter and flour moistened with a little soup.

  6. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  7. Add the sieved mixture to the soup to thicken.

  8. Simmer the soup for another 30 minutes, skimming as needed.

  9. Strain the soup back into the pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the reserved meat.

  2. Add the wine.

  3. Add the currant jelly.

  4. Season with salt.

  5. Add the forcemeat balls.

  6. Heat until warmed through.

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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Port wine + curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the meat and rich flavour that gives the soup its body.
Butter
Enriches the thickened mixture, adding richness and smooth texture to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when pounded with meat and added to the broth.
Claret or port wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the finished soup.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity note that balances the savoury broth.

The step that matters

Thickening with the pounded meat mixture. Flour must be cooked long enough in the hot soup to lose its raw taste and thicken evenly. Rubbing the mixture through a sieve removes lumps so the soup stays smooth.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, clove, mace, butter, flour, port wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, clove, mace, butter, flour, 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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