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Thick Hare Soup

A hearty soup made from hare, ham, onion, celery, herbs, and spices, thickened with pounded hare meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Thick Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the stock

  1. Place the hare pieces in a large pot with ham, onion, celery, sweet herbs, and boiling water.

  2. Cover the pot and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 3 hours.

  3. Simmer for another 3 hours.

  4. Strain the liquid.

Finish the soup

  1. Remove the meat from the bones.

  2. Pound the meat until smooth.

  3. Mix the pounded meat with the soup until thick.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Stir in Harvey's sauce, port wine, and cayenne pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve with forcemeat balls made from chopped liver or brains.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Port wine + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together108 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Onion + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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 body; long cooking softens it so it can be pounded into the soup.
Pounded meat
Thickens the soup as it is mixed in and bringing it to a boil.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished soup.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the stock during the long cooking.

The step that matters

Mix the pounded meat with the soup until thick. Meat added to hot liquid can clump or thin the texture if not stirred in evenly. Mixing it in gradually and then bringing the soup to a boil lets the fine meat disperse and thicken the broth smoothly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, sauce, port wine, pepper, liver. 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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