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Rabbit Soup a Ba Reine

A rabbit soup made with whole rabbits, vegetables, herbs, and cream, finished with arrowroot and cayenne pepper.

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 Ba Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Wash and soak the rabbits thoroughly.

  2. Place them whole in a soup pot and add the cold water or veal broth.

  3. Stew gently for about 45 minutes.

  4. Remove the rabbits, take off the flesh from the backs and a little from the legs, and mince it finely.

  5. Pound the minced meat into a smooth paste and cover it 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 softly for about 4 hours.

  3. Strain the soup and let it settle, then pour off the clear liquid into a clean stewpan.

  4. Gradually mix in the pounded rabbit flesh while the soup is hot to avoid lumps.

  5. Season with pounded mace and cayenne to taste.

  6. Pass the soup through a coarse sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the soup to the stewpan, bring to a boil, and stir in the cream mixed with arrowroot.

  2. Add salt if needed before serving.

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
Provide the meat that is pounded and stirred in, giving the soup body and rich flavor.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Arrowroot
Thickens the soup slightly when stirred into the hot liquid, giving it body.
Onions
Build savory aroma and sweetness as they soften in the broth.
Celery
Contributes savory, aromatic flavor to the broth as it stews.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and depth to the broth during the long stew.

The step that matters

Mixing the pounded rabbit into the hot soup. Adding the meat paste gradually while the liquid is hot lets it disperse evenly. Cold or rushed addition lets proteins clump into lumps that cannot be smoothed out later.

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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