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Rabbit Soup

A hearty rabbit soup with ham bone, herbs, and a thickened broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Rabbit Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the rabbit pieces in a soup pot with the ham bone, sweet herbs, bay leaf, onion with cloves, and whole pepper.

  2. Simmer until the meat is tender.

  3. Remove the meat, cut it into neat squares, and return the bones and trimmings to the pot.

  4. Simmer until the meat falls apart.

Thicken and finish

  1. Strain the soup and thicken it with flour and butter mixed over low heat until smooth.

  2. Add the seasoned stock or red wine and the reserved meat, then season to taste.

  3. Let everything simmer together and serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + red winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 simmering and is then cut into squares.
Flour
Thickens the strained soup, giving it body when cooked with butter into a smooth mixture.
Butter
Combines with flour to form a roux that thickens the soup and adds richness.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor when used in place of seasoned stock.
Ham bone
Releases savory flavor and gelatin into the broth during simmering.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour and butter until smooth. Flour added directly to hot liquid forms lumps, so cooking it with butter over low heat first lets the starch disperse evenly and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, ham, clove, pepper, flour, butter, red wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, ham, clove, pepper, flour, butter, red wine. 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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