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Soup

Rabbit Soup

A soup made by stewing rabbit with beef bones, ham, onion, and herbs, served with fried rabbit balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Rabbit Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the rabbit, beef bones, sliced ham, onion, and chopped herbs with the water.

  2. Cover the pot tightly and place a weight on top.

  3. Stew for four hours until the meat is tender.

  4. Strain the soup, rubbing the vegetables through a colander.

  5. Season to taste and cool, then remove the fat.

  6. Reheat the strained soup, adding the leftover tomato sauce.

  7. Bring to a boil and pour out.

Make the balls

  1. Finely chop some of the soup meat while the soup cools.

  2. Season and mix in fine crumbs and a beaten egg.

  3. Form the mixture into balls, coat with flour, and fry in hot oil.

Serve

  1. Place the fried balls into a tureen before serving 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 flavour and, after stewing, tender meat for the soup and balls.
Beef bones
Release gelatin and savoury depth into the broth during long, slow simmering.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and body to the broth as it cooks down.
Raw egg
Binds the chopped meat and crumbs so the balls hold their shape when fried.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and colour to the reheated soup.

The step that matters

Form and fry the balls. The mixture must be bound firmly with egg and crumbs and kept well coated with flour; loose mixture breaks apart in hot oil, and oil that is not hot enough lets the balls absorb grease rather than crisp.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, beef, ham, onion, sauce, egg):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, beef, ham, onion, sauce, 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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