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French Hare Soup

A stew of hare pieces simmered in port wine, herbs, and broth, then strained and seasoned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

French Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the hares into small pieces and place them in a stew pan.

  2. Add the port wine, onions, parsley, bay leaf, thyme, sweet basil, marjoram, and mace.

Make the soup

  1. Simmer on the stove for 1 hour.

  2. Add enough boiling broth to cover the meat and simmer until soft enough to strain.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Soak the crumb of the loaf in the strained liquid.

  5. Separate the bones from the meat.

  6. Pound the meat.

  7. Rub the meat through a sieve with the liquid.

  8. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  9. Heat thoroughly without boiling.

  10. Optional: Add forcemeat balls made from the hare.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Basil + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

What each ingredient does

Hares
Provide the meat that gives the soup its body and rich, gamy flavour.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and deep fruity aroma to the stock and meat.
Crumb of a 2-penny loaf
Soaked in the liquid, it thickens the soup and gives it a smoother body.

The step that matters

Heat thoroughly without boiling. Boiling a soup after it has been puréed and thickened with bread can cause it to separate and turn grainy, and can toughen the meat. Gentle heating keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, onion, clove, parsley, thyme, basil, marjoram):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, onion, clove, parsley, thyme, basil, marjoram. 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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