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Rabbit Soup

A soup made with rabbit, celery, carrots, onion, mace, cream, eggs, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 45 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; when quite clean, put them into a stewpan with a faggot of herbs and a teacupful, or rather more, of veal stock or water.

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

Make the soup

  1. 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 two hours; skim and strain, and let it cool.

  2. Pound the meat in a mortar with the yolks of the eggs and the crumb of the roll previously soaked; rub it through a tammy, and gradually add it to the strained liquor, and simmer for 15 minutes.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix arrowroot or rice‑flour with the cream (say 2 dessertspoonfuls), and stir in the soup; bring it to a boil, and serve.

  2. Optionally, instead of thickening with arrowroot or rice‑flour, boil vermicelli or pearl barley in a little stock and put in five minutes before serving.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

985Calories
34 gProtein
33 gFat
136 gCarbs

Counts 14 of 17 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 14 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 make up the body of the soup.
Eggs
Yolks are pounded with the meat and bind the soup, giving it a richer body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the finished soup.
Arrowroot or rice-flour
Starch that thickens the liquid when heated, giving the soup body.

The step that matters

Boiling after adding the cream and thickener. Starch thickens as it heats, but boiling a cream-based soup hard after adding the cream can cause it to curdle or separate, so heat it gently once combined.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, cream, milk, butter, rabbit, carrot, onion. 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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