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Rabbit Soup

A soup made from rabbits, ham or salt pork, onions, sweet herbs, and flavored with catsup and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rabbit and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,292 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Rabbit Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Crack the bones of the rabbits and boil them with the ham or salt pork in a large pot.

  2. Add the chopped onions and sweet herbs.

  3. Stew slowly in 3 quarts of water for 3 hours.

  4. Season to taste and strain the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken slightly with browned flour mixed with cold water.

  2. Stir in the catsup and Worcestershire sauce 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. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Rabbit + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together273 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rabbit + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the meat and bones that give the soup its body and savory flavor.
Ham or salt pork
Adds salty, smoky fat that flavors the broth during the long stew.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in the broth.
Browned flour
Thickens the broth slightly and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Catsup
Adds tomato sweetness and acidity to round out the broth.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds tangy, savory depth that boosts the overall umami of the soup.

The step that matters

Slow stew of the rabbit bones. Simmering gently for the full 3 hours lets collagen and marrow from the bones dissolve into the broth, giving body and flavor. A hard boil can make the broth cloudy and the meat tough.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, ham, flour, sauce. 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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