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Rabbit Soup

A hearty soup made from rabbit, celery, carrots, onion, mace, cream, eggs, and French roll crumbs, thickened with arrowroot or rice flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Rabbit Soup

10 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Make the soup with the legs and shoulders of the rabbit, and keep the nice pieces for a dish or entrée.

  2. Put the rabbit parts into warm water and draw the blood.

  3. When the water is quite clean, put the rabbit parts in a stewpan with a faggot of herbs and a teacupful, or more, of veal stock or water.

Make the stock

  1. Simmer slowly until done through, then add the 3 quarts of water and boil for an hour.

  2. Take out the rabbit, pick the meat from the bones, covering it up to keep it white; put the bones back in the liquor, add the vegetables, and simmer for 2 hours.

  3. Skim and strain, and let it cool.

Finish the soup

  1. Pound the meat in a mortar with the yolks of the eggs and the crumb of the roll previously soaked.

  2. Rub the mixture through a tammy, and gradually add it to the strained liquor, simmering for 15 minutes.

  3. Mix arrowroot or rice flour with the cream (about 2 dessert spoonfuls) and stir it into the soup; bring to a boil and serve.

  4. Instead of thickening with arrowroot or rice flour, boil vermicelli or pearl barley in a little stock and add 5 minutes before serving.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

210Calories
9 gProtein
11 gFat
20 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 10 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Rabbitnot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Cream + rabbittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the meat and flavour that form the body of the soup.
Eggs
Yolks bind the pounded meat so it blends smoothly into the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, softer mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Arrowroot or rice flour (in the method)
Thickens the liquor so the soup becomes lightly body-rich.

The step that matters

Rubbing the meat mixture through a tammy and adding it gradually. Adding the meat paste all at once can leave lumps that stay in the soup. Pressing it through a fine sieve breaks it into fine particles, and gradual stirring lets it disperse evenly as the liquor is simmered.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, cream, rabbit, carrot, onion, mace, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, cream, rabbit, carrot, onion, mace, egg. 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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