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Bisque of Rabbit

A creamy rabbit bisque made with stock, milk, and roux, finished with lemon juice and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bisque of Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a stewpan, combine the rabbits, onion, bay leaf, mace, celery, seasoning, and stock broth.

  2. Boil until the rabbits are tender.

  3. Remove the rabbits from the broth and save the best pieces of meat.

  4. Pound the bones in a mortar with a little grated nutmeg and return them to the broth.

Finish the bisque

  1. Add the milk and roux, then boil for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Add the reserved meat cut into small squares, chopped parsley, and lemon juice.

  4. Bring to a boil, skim off any scum, and serve.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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 flavour base for the stock.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy body to the bisque.
Roux
Thickens the bisque by gelatinising starch in the liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling after adding the milk and roux. Milk can scorch on the bottom of the pan and curdle if boiled hard, and the roux needs to cook through to thicken smoothly without a floury taste. Stir often and keep the heat controlled.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, onion, celery, pepper, milk, nutmeg, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, celery, pepper, milk, nutmeg, parsley. 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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