Name: Rabbits in Soup
Ingredients: 2 young rabbits; 3 onions, stuck with a clove; 1 clove of garlic; 2 carrots; 1 bunch of parsley; 2 scallions; fish, vegetable, or meat stock (or water); ½ to ¾ pound bacon, sliced with skin on

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rabbits in Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut down the rabbits and place them in a small pot.
Add the onions, garlic, carrots, parsley, and scallions.
Moisten with stock or water.
Blanch the bacon slices and add them to the pot.

Cook and serve

Cook until done, then strain the soup into a tureen.
Serve the rabbits with a purée of lentils or peas.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits: Provide the main meat, which becomes tender as the soup simmers.
Bacon: Adds savory fat and smoky flavor that enriches the broth.
Onions: Build a sweet, aromatic base that flavors the broth.
Carrots: Add natural sweetness and body to the soup.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, onion, garlic, carrot, parsley, fish):

Thymefits better
Celeryfits better
Marjoramfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, garlic, carrot, parsley, fish. 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.