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Hare-soup with Quenelles

A hare soup with hare meat, vegetables, veal or poultry trimmings, ham bone, bacon, calf's foot, and quenelles.

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

Hare-soup with Quenelles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Skin and draw the hare, reserving the blood for later use.

  2. Disengage the paws and legs.

  3. Keep one leg whole and cut the rest into pieces along with the breast and neck.

  4. Cut the back in half.

Make the soup base

  1. In a stewpan, fry the minced onion, carrot, and celery in butter over moderate heat.

  2. Add the raw trimmings, ham bone, and bacon; cook until browned.

  3. Sprinkle flour over the mixture and gradually moisten with warm broth and white wine until slightly thickened.

  4. At the first bubbling, move the stewpan to the side of the fire and finish boiling the meat.

  5. Drain the meat.

  6. Remove the fleshy parts.

  7. Pound them before passing through a sieve.

  8. Skim the fat off the soup.

  9. Mix in the hare puree.

  10. Add a pinch of cayenne pepper.

  11. Pour into a tureen.

  12. Strain through a fine colander.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 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 main meat and rich, gamey flavour of the soup.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion, carrot and celery and carries their aroma.
Flour
Thickens the broth and wine so the soup becomes slightly body-rich.
Bacon
Renders fat and savoury flavour into the base as it browns.
Raw ham bone
Adds savoury depth and richness to the stock during simmering.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

At the first bubbling, move the stewpan to the side of the fire. Once the liquid starts to bubble, a hard boil can toughen the meat and cloud the soup. Keeping it at a gentle simmer gives a tender, clearer result.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, veal, ham, butter, pepper, white wine):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, veal, ham, butter, pepper, white 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.

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