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Rabbit Soup

A clear broth made from rabbit, vegetables, herbs, and seasonings, finished with a roux and rabbit meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery 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

Make the stock

  1. Joint the rabbit and place it in a pan with cold water. Bring to a boil and skim well.

  2. Add the sliced vegetables, celery, herbs, peppercorns, ham, and cloves. Simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  3. Remove the back of the rabbit, take the flesh off the bones, and return the bones to the pan. Continue simmering for another hour.

  4. Strain the stock through a fine sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, stir in the flour until smooth, then add the stock and stir until it boils.

  2. Add the salt, mushroom ketchup, Liebig’s Extract of Meat, and the rabbit flesh cut into small pieces.

  3. Serve with toast or fried bread slices.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mushroom + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

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

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, through its bones, the flavour of the stock.
Butter
Enriches the soup and, with the flour, forms the base of the thickening roux.
Flour
Thickens the stock with the melted butter, giving the soup body.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the stock as it simmers.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the stock during simmering.
Liebig’s extract of meat
Concentrates meaty savoury flavour into the finished soup.

The step that matters

Stir the flour into the melted butter until smooth, then add the stock. Cooking flour in fat before adding liquid coats the starch grains so they disperse evenly rather than clumping. Stirring until smooth and then bringing to a boil lets the starch swell and thicken the stock fully.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, mushroom, ketchup, meat, carrot, celery, butter):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Turnipfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, mushroom, ketchup, meat, carrot, celery, butter. 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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