Skip to main content
Main

Puree of Rabbit

A rabbit puree soup made with fillets, onion, clove, nutmeg, stock, and boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Puree of Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Remove the fillets from the rabbit.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over moderate heat and gently simmer the fillets.

Make the soup

  1. In another saucepan, combine the remaining rabbit, onion, clove, nutmeg, and consomme.

  2. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  3. Remove the meat from the thighs and shoulders, and pound it with the boiled rice.

  4. Moisten with the consomme and pass through a sieve.

  5. Cut the cooked fillets into small pieces and serve in the soup.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which is cooked until tender and then pounded into a smooth puree.
Boiled rice
Adds body and thickness, helping the pounded meat form a smooth, velvety puree.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and gently cooks the fillets without browning them.
Consomme
Supplies the liquid base that cooks the rabbit and loosens the puree.

The step that matters

Pounding and sieving the meat. Pounding the cooked meat with rice and then passing it through a sieve breaks down fibres and removes lumps, which gives the soup its smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the puree grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, clove, nutmeg, rice, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, clove, nutmeg, rice, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes