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Rabbit Soup

A clear soup made from rabbit, ham, onions, and water, thickened with flour or milk, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rabbit Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Wash the rabbit well and cut it into small joints.

  2. Put the rabbit, cold water, sliced onions, and cut-up ham into a saucepan. Season with pepper and salt.

  3. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  4. Simmer gently for three hours.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the soup and carefully remove all fat.

  2. Return the soup to the saucepan. If you want it unthickened, heat it and stir in a teaspoon of chopped parsley before serving.

  3. To thicken, blend the flour with the milk and strain it into the soup. Stir until it boils and cook for five minutes.

  4. Season to taste and serve with diced toasted bread.

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

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Rabbit
Provides the main meat and flavour that gives the soup its body.
Ham or pork
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the broth as it simmers.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook down.
Milk
Adds richness and softness to the soup when blended into the thickening.
Flour or ground rice
Thickens the soup as it boils, giving it a smoother, heavier texture.

The step that matters

Stir the thickening as it boils. Flour or ground rice mixed with milk must be blended smooth and stirred while the soup comes to a boil, or it can clump and stay floury. Cooking it for the full time lets the starch swell and fully thicken the soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, ham, milk, flour, pepper, parsley, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, ham, milk, flour, pepper, parsley, bread. 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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