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Superlative Hare Soup

A hearty soup made with hare, ham, onions, mace, herbs, beef stock, French roll crumbs, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Superlative Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the hare joints and ham in a large soup pot with the onions, mace, herbs, and beef stock.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil.

  3. Let it stew for 2 hours, or longer if the hare is old.

  4. Strain the soup.

Finish the soup

  1. Finely chop the ham and hare meat.

  2. Combine the meat with the strained liquid, the crumb of the French rolls, and port wine in a stew pan.

  3. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Pass through a sieve.

  5. Heat again on the stove until very hot, but do not boil.

  6. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  7. Serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 flavor to the soup.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the meat and aromatics.
French rolls
Their crumb thickens the soup, giving it body after it is passed through a sieve.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the finished soup.
Onions
Release sweetness and savory aromatics that build the soup's base flavor.
Ham
Adds salty, savory depth to the broth as it stews.

The step that matters

Heat again without boiling. Boiling the soup after it has been passed through a sieve can cause it to separate and turn grainy, and it dulls the delicate flavor of the port. Gently heating until very hot keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, parsley, thyme, beef, port wine, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, parsley, thyme, beef, port wine, pepper. 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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