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Rabbit Soup

A soup made from rabbits simmered with stock, wine, spices, and walnut ketchup, finished with lemon pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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.

  2. Place them in a pot with enough water to cover them.

  3. Boil slowly, removing any scum that rises until no more scum appears.

Make the soup

  1. Add 2 quarts of prepared stock and simmer gently until the meat is tender.

  2. Set aside until the next day.

  3. Remove all fat from the soup.

  4. Take out the liver and rub it through a sieve.

  5. Moisten the liver with a little flour and butter, then add it back to the soup.

  6. Add 1 cup of port wine, 1 cup of white wine, a little walnut ketchup, 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Rabbit + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Port wine + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together237 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering.
Stock
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavour of the soup.
Liver (in the method)
Rubbed smooth and added back, it thickens and enriches the soup's body.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the soup.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich stock.

The step that matters

Removing the scum while boiling. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the rabbit heats. Skimming it until none appears keeps the broth clear and free of off flavours.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, beef, onion, port wine, white wine, walnut, ketchup. 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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