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Rabbit Broth

A clear broth made with rabbit, bacon, and vegetables, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rabbit.

  2. If serving whole, truss it for boiling; if not, cut it into small joints and remove the liver.

  3. If using bacon, scrape it well and soak in warm water for 1 to 2 hours.

  4. Cut the vegetables into small dice or cubes.

Make the broth

  1. In a large stewpan, add water, bacon, and rabbit.

  2. Bring the mixture slowly to a boil, skimming off any scum.

  3. After 1 hour, add the vegetables, rice, and a little salt.

  4. Continue cooking for another hour.

  5. Remove the rabbit.

Finish and serve

  1. If serving separately, prepare onion sauce or white sauce.

  2. If the rabbit is in joints, remove the meat from the bones. Cut the meat into small dice.

  3. Return the diced meat to the broth to reheat.

  4. Cut some bacon into dice. The rest of the bacon can be served cold.

  5. Season to taste and serve.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Rabbit
Supplies the main meat, which becomes tender and flavours the broth as it cooks.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that enriches the broth's flavour.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they simmer.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and body to the broth.
Rice
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during simmering.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture slowly to a boil, skimming off any scum.. Heating gently lets impurities and coagulated proteins rise to the surface where they can be skimmed, giving a clearer, cleaner broth. Boiling hard too early emulsifies scum into the liquid and clouds it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, pork, carrot, turnip, celery, rice, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pork, carrot, turnip, celery, rice, pepper. 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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