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Hare Soup

A hearty soup made with hare, stock, onion, red herring, cloves, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Hare Soup

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Cut the meaty parts of the hare into walnut-sized pieces and fry them until nicely browned.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the hare carcass, saved blood, onion, red herring, cloves, and stock. Stew for 2 hours.

  2. Rub the parboiled liver through a sieve with butter and flour to thicken the soup.

  3. Strain the soup and add the hare pieces, port wine, soy sauce, cayenne, and salt. Stew for 1 hour.

  4. Serve the soup with the pieces of hare included.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hare liver
Rubbed through a sieve, it dissolves into the soup and helps thicken it.
Flour
Thickens the soup with butter when mixed into the rubbed liver.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the liver and flour blend smoothly into the soup.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished soup.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup, carrying the flavour of the hare and onion.

The step that matters

Rubbing the parboiled liver through a sieve with butter and flour. Flour thickens liquid only when it is evenly dispersed. Mixing it with butter first and pressing the liver through a sieve helps prevent lumps, so the soup thickens smoothly rather than clumping.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, liver, flour, port wine, sauce, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, liver, flour, port wine, 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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