Skip to main content
Soup

Artificial Hare Soup

A soup made by stewing bullock's heart with onions, mace, herbs, and spices, then puréeing and thickening to a creamy consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Artificial Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove fat, pipes, and outer skin from the bullock's heart.

  2. Slice the heart and place it in a covered earthen jar.

  3. Add onions (with cloves), mace, pepper, salt, sweet herbs, bread, and butter rubbed into flour to the jar.

  4. Cover the ingredients with water and seal the jar with a paste to prevent steam from escaping.

  5. Place the jar in a pot of boiling water, ensuring the water nearly reaches the top of the jar.

Stew and strain

  1. Stew for several hours, adding boiling water as needed.

  2. Once the meat is tender, pound it with the bread in a mortar, moistening with beef broth.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve and combine with the stewing gravy and enough beef broth to achieve the desired soup quantity.

Finish the soup

  1. Bring to a boil and adjust seasoning with cayenne and salt.

  2. If the soup is not thick enough, add flour and butter until it reaches a creamy consistency.

  3. Stir in sugar and port wine for added flavor, if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  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

Bullock's heart
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and thickens the soup when pounded and sieved.
Bread
Pounded with the meat, it helps thicken the soup and give it body.
Butter rubbed into flour
Adds richness and, with flour, helps thicken the soup to a creamy texture.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma to the stewing gravy.

The step that matters

Sealing the jar and stewing gently. The paste seal traps steam so the liquid and flavors stay in the jar, and the jar sits in boiling water so the contents cook slowly and gently. If the seal leaks or the heat is too rough, the broth reduces and the meat may turn out dry or unevenly cooked.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, pepper, bread, 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.

More hare soup recipes

Scotch 7Imitation 3 See all 137 →

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes