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Hare Soup

A hearty stew made from hare, veal knuckle, herbs, and optional forcemeat balls and red wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Hare Soup

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Wash the hare and cut it into pieces.

  2. Combine the hare pieces, water, knuckle of veal, sweet herbs, salt, and black pepper in a large pot.

  3. Stew for 3 to 4 hours.

  4. Strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Quickly fry 3 or 4 of the best pieces of hare in butter until browned.

  2. Add the browned pieces to the strained soup.

  3. Let the soup simmer for 15 minutes.

  4. Thicken the soup with a mixture of flour and butter.

  5. Serve hot with forcemeat balls and red wine 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Supplies the main meat and flavour of the soup, and its pieces are browned for added depth.
Knuckle of veal
Adds gelatin and body to the stock during the long stew.
Flour
Thickens the soup, giving it a fuller, smoother texture.
Butter
Browns the hare pieces for colour and rich, savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked in fat before or as it meets the hot liquid, otherwise it clumps and leaves a raw, pasty taste. Whisking it smoothly into the simmering soup gives an even, lightly thickened texture.

“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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