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Rabbit Soup

A hearty soup made from rabbit, stock, wine, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and white wine share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 55 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Rabbit Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Cut up the rabbits and place the pieces in a pot with enough water to cover them.

  2. Boil slowly and remove any scum that rises to the surface.

Make the soup

  1. Once the scum is gone, add 2 quarts of good stock or soft water flavored with onions, white peppercorns, and mace.

  2. Simmer gently until the meat is tender, then set aside until the next day.

  3. Before reheating, remove all fat and take out the liver.

  4. Rub the liver through a sieve, moisten with a little flour and butter, and add to the soup.

  5. Stir in 1 cup of port wine, 1 cup of white wine, 1 tablespoon of walnut catsup, and lemon pickle.

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. Port wine + white winetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

  5. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Rabbits
Provide the meat that becomes tender during slow simmering and gives the soup its body.
Liver (in the method)
Rubbed through a sieve, it thickens and enriches the soup with a smooth, deep flavour.
Flour
Moistened with butter and stirred in, it thickens the soup slightly.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and smoothing the texture.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, with alcohol that carries aroma.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the savoury flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

Removing the scum while boiling. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the water heats. Skimming it early keeps the broth clear and free of bitter, muddy flavours. Boiling gently prevents the scum from being churned back into the liquid.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, onion, flour, butter, port wine, white wine, walnut):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, flour, butter, port wine, white wine, walnut. 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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