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Hare Soup

A hearty soup made from hare meat, organs, spices, and forcemeat balls, simmered in water or broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Hare Soup

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Cut off the legs and shoulders of the hare and divide the body into 3 or 4 parts.

  2. Chop the kidneys, heart, and lights; add them to enrich the gravy.

Make the soup

  1. Add black pepper, allspice, mace, cloves, onion, carrot, bay leaf, and sweet herbs to 3 quarts of water or broth.

  2. Simmer gently for 3 hours in a stewpan or earthen pot.

  3. Once the meat is tender, remove the best pieces (back and upper legs) and set aside.

  4. Scrape the remaining meat from the bones, clear it from skin and sinews, and chop finely.

  5. Pound the chopped meat with butter and flour until smooth, then mix with some gravy.

  6. Stir this mixture back into the soup and let it simmer for 30 minutes, skimming as needed.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup through a tamis, return it to the stewpan with the reserved meat and forcemeat balls.

  2. Add port wine, currant jelly, and salt, and cook until the balls are done.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the rich meat and bones that build the flavour and body of the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the flour-thickened meat paste blend smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it becomes body-rich rather than thin.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, acidity and depth of aroma to the finished soup.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity note that balances the rich, savoury gravy.

The step that matters

Pound the chopped meat with butter and flour until smooth. If the paste stays lumpy, flour clumps stay raw and the gravy turns grainy or pasty when stirred back in. Working it smooth first lets it thicken the soup evenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, clove, onion, carrot, butter, flour. 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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