Skip to main content
Main

Scotch Hare Soup

A hearty hare soup made with hare meat, blood, butter, flour, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

Scotch Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Skin the hare, preserving the blood.

  2. Cut the hare into pieces.

  3. Wash the hare pieces and place them in a stew pan with ½ cup of butter.

  4. Cover and stew for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Make the thickened broth

  1. Melt 2 ounces of butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add 3 tablespoons of flour to the butter and brown it.

  3. Mix the preserved blood with 4 quarts of cold water and strain it.

  4. Add the strained mixture and the remaining meat to the browned butter.

  5. Stir constantly until it boils.

  6. Combine the mixture with the hare in the stew pan.

  7. Add the chopped carrot, celery, and onions.

  8. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  9. Let it boil for 2 to 2.5 hours, depending on the age of the hare.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, remove all bones, the carrot, and celery.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 form the body of the soup.
Butter
Carries flavour and browns with the flour, adding nutty richness to the base.
Flour
Browned in butter, it thickens the liquid and gives the soup body.
Preserved blood (in the method)
Adds depth and thickens the broth as it is strained into the liquid.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury aroma during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Stir the browned flour and butter constantly until the liquid boils. Flour left unstirred in hot fat can scorch or clump, and stirring while adding liquid keeps the roux smooth so the broth thickens evenly without lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, carrot, celery, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, carrot, celery, 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipes