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Rabbit Soup

A soup made from rabbit pieces simmered in broth, seasoned with salt and parsley, finished with cream and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rabbit Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Soak the rabbit pieces in warm water for 10 minutes to draw out the blood.

  2. Place the rabbit in a saucepan with the broth (or milk and water).

Simmer and finish

  1. Season with salt and add parsley; simmer slowly until the meat is very tender.

  2. Strain the soup, pick the meat from the bones, and chop it finely.

  3. Return the chopped meat to the soup and set over the fire.

  4. Add the hot cream and bread-crumbs.

  5. If desired, add cooked rice, pearl barley, or vermicelli just before serving.

  6. Serve with small slices of lightly-buttered and well-browned toast.

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. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Parsley + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Rabbit + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  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 meat that gives the soup its body and main flavour.
Broth
Forms the liquid base in which the rabbit cooks and flavours the soup.
Hot cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the soup.
Bread-crumbs
Thickens the soup slightly and softens its texture.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly until very tender. Gentle simmering lets connective tissue in the rabbit break down so the meat becomes tender. Boiling hard toughens the proteins and can leave the meat stringy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, milk, cream, bread, rice):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, milk, cream, bread, rice. 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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