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A Less Expensive Hare Soup

A hearty soup made with beef, hare, vegetables, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

A Less Expensive Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine beef, hare, and cold water in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil, then skim the surface.

  3. Add salt, onions, celery, carrots, peppercorns, and cloves.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 3 hours or until hare is tender.

Finish the soup

  1. Remove hare joints, cut the meat off, and mince it.

  2. Soak bread crumbs in some boiling soup, then press dry in a cloth.

  3. Mix minced meat with soaked bread and remaining hare stock.

  4. Strain the soup and season to taste.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Gives the soup its main meaty flavour and body once simmered and minced.
Beef
Adds rich savoury depth and gelatin to the stock as it simmers.
Bread crumbs
Soaked and pressed, they thicken the soup and add body to the minced meat.
Onions
Contribute savoury sweetness and aroma to the stock as it simmers.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and colour to the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the hare is tender. A rolling boil makes the stock cloudy and can toughen the meat, while gentle simmering keeps the broth clear and lets the connective tissue soften slowly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, celery, carrot, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, celery, carrot, bread. 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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