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Hare or Rabbit Soup

A hearty soup made with hare or rabbit, mace, onions, red herring, morels, red wine, barley, and liver.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and barley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,166 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Hare or Rabbit Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the broth

  1. Place the hare or rabbit pieces in an earthen mug with mace, onions, salt, red herring, morels, red wine, and water.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the liquid into a stew-pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the boiled barley to the strained liquid.

  2. Scald the liver, then rub it through a sieve into the soup.

  3. Heat the soup over low heat, stirring until just before boiling, then remove from heat.

  4. Serve with crisped bread in a tureen.

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. Onion + barleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Barley + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rabbit + barleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rabbit + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare or rabbit
Provides the meat that flavours and enriches the broth as it bakes slowly.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth, helping to draw flavour out of the meat and aromatics.
Morels
Contribute a earthy, aromatic flavour to the broth.
French barley
Adds body and a soft, chewy texture to the soup.
Liver
Thickens the soup slightly and adds richness when rubbed through the sieve.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften into the broth.

The step that matters

Heat the soup gently. Stirring it over low heat until just before boiling keeps the liver mixture smooth and prevents it from curdling or becoming grainy. A hard boil can also toughen the meat and cloud the broth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, onion, red wine, barley, liver, bread):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, red wine, barley, liver, 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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