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Babbit Soup

A hearty rabbit soup with herbs, vegetables, and a creamy egg yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Babbit Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Use the legs and shoulders of the rabbit for the soup.

  2. Save the nice pieces for another dish.

  3. Place the rabbit in warm water to draw the blood.

  4. Clean the rabbit thoroughly.

  5. Put the rabbit in a stewpan with the herbs and a cup of veal stock or water.

  6. Simmer slowly until cooked through.

Make the broth

  1. Add 3 quarts of water and boil for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the rabbit and pick the meat from the bones.

  3. Cover the meat to keep it white.

  4. Return the bones to the pot.

  5. Add the vegetables.

  6. Simmer for 2 hours.

  7. Skim the broth.

  8. Strain the broth.

  9. Let the broth cool.

Finish the soup

  1. Pound the rabbit meat with the egg yolks and soaked roll.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Gradually add the mixture to the strained broth.

  4. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  5. Mix 2 teaspoons of arrowroot or rice flour with the cream.

  6. Stir the mixture into the soup.

  7. Bring to a boil.

  8. Serve.

  9. For variation, add cooked vermicelli or pearl barley just before serving.

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. 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. Rabbit + creamtop 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 main meat, which becomes tender through long slow simmering.
Egg yolks
Enriches the soup and helps thicken the smooth puréed mixture.
French roll crumb
Adds body and helps bind the pounded meat into a smooth purée.
Larded cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished soup.
Celery
Builds the aromatic flavor base of the broth.
Onion
Contributes savory sweetness and depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Gradually add the pounded mixture to the strained broth. Adding the sieved rabbit and egg mixture slowly, while stirring, lets it disperse evenly and prevents lumps. Egg yolks can curdle if they are heated too quickly, so the soup should not be allowed to boil hard at this stage.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

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