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Rabbit Soup a LA Reike

A hearty rabbit soup simmered with onions, celery, carrots, herbs, and a creamy finish.

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 a LA Reike

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbits

  1. Wash the rabbits thoroughly and soak them.

  2. Place the rabbits whole in a soup pot and add 7 pints of cold water or veal broth.

  3. Stew gently for about 45 minutes.

  4. Remove the rabbits from the pot.

  5. Take off the flesh from the backs and a little from the legs, mince it finely, and pound the minced meat into a smooth paste.

  6. Cover the paste to keep it fresh.

Make the soup

  1. Return the rabbit bodies to the pot along with onions, celery, carrots, savory herbs, mace, peppercorns, and salt.

  2. Stew the mixture gently for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the soup and let it settle.

  4. Pour off the clear liquid into a clean stewpan.

  5. Gradually mix the hot liquid with the pounded rabbit flesh, adding it slowly to avoid lumps.

  6. Season with pounded mace and cayenne to taste.

  7. Strain through a coarse sieve.

  8. Wipe out the stewpan and return the soup to it.

  9. Stir in the cream mixed with arrowroot when it boils.

  10. Add salt if needed.

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

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Celery + arrowroottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together114 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + arrowroottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
The main meat, which gives the soup its body and flavour.
Pounded rabbit flesh
Thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, rich body when blended into the liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished soup.
Arrowroot
Thickens the cream and soup to a smooth, glossy consistency without lumps.

The step that matters

Adding the hot liquid to the rabbit paste. Pouring the hot liquid in gradually and mixing as you go keeps the starchy, fine meat paste from clumping, so the soup stays smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, veal, onion, celery, carrot, cream, arrowroot):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, veal, onion, celery, carrot, cream, arrowroot. 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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