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Potage De Levrauts d'Anglaise

A French hare soup with bacon, clarified butter, wine, and herbs, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 ↓

Potage De Levrauts d'Anglaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a stewpan, gently cook the leverets with the bacon and clarified butter.

  2. Once cooled, mix in the flour, Bordeaux wine, consomme, and herbs.

Make the soup

  1. Add the mushrooms and onions.

  2. Season with Cayenne, cloves, mace, and black pepper.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer gently.

  5. Skim off any foam.

  6. When the meat is tender, drain it and trim off any excess bones.

  7. Arrange the meat and bacon in a serving dish and pour the sauce over them.

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

Leverets
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through long gentle simmering.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and salty, smoky flavour to the broth and meat.
Clarified butter
Carries fat for gentle cooking and adds a rich, nutty flavour.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the meat and mushrooms.
Bordeaux wine
Adds acidity and depth, and helps build the sauce's flavour.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam. Foam rising during simmering carries impurities and cloudiness into the sauce. Removing it keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, wine, parsley, thyme, marjoram, mushroom):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, wine, parsley, thyme, marjoram, mushroom. 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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