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Rabbit Soup

A hearty soup made from rabbit, beef stock, vegetables, and seasonings, finished with port wine and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Rabbit Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer

  1. Cut up the rabbits and keep the livers apart.

  2. Fry the joints and place them in a stewpan with the livers.

  3. Pour in the beef stock and simmer for 2 hours, skimming off the scum.

  4. Remove the backs of the rabbits, cut off the meat, and return the bones to the pot.

  5. Add the shallot, onion, sweet herbs, celery, carrots, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  6. Stew for another hour, then strain the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub the liver through a sieve and heat the soup for serving.

  2. Add the port wine and mushroom ketchup, and serve with fried bread slices and diced rabbit meat.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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 meat, which is diced and served in the soup, and the bones that add body.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour of the other ingredients.
Livers (in the method)
Rubbed through a sieve, they thicken the soup and add a rich, earthy depth.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and a deeper, fruity richness to the finished soup.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury umami depth to the soup.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavour to the stock during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Skimming off the scum during the simmer. Scum rises from proteins and impurities released as the meat heats. Removing it keeps the soup clear and prevents a muddy, off-flavoured broth.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, beef, onion, celery, carrot, pepper, port wine):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, beef, onion, celery, carrot, pepper, port 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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