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Rabbit Soup a LA Reine

A rabbit soup simmered with onions, celery, carrots, herbs, mace, pepper, salt, finished with cream and arrowroot.

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 Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  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, then mince it finely.

  6. 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 softly for about 4 hours.

  3. Strain the soup and let it settle.

  4. Pour the clear liquid into a clean stewpan.

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

  6. Season with pounded mace and cayenne to taste.

  7. Pass the soup through a clean sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the soup to the stewpan and bring it to a boil.

  2. Stir in the cream mixed with arrowroot.

  3. 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 main meat, and the flesh pounded into the soup gives body and richness.
Arrowroot
Thickens the cream-enriched soup to a smooth, silky texture without lumps.
Cream
Adds richness, mellow flavour and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the soup.
Onions
Build the aromatic base and add savoury sweetness as the stock slowly simmers.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and body to the long-simmered broth.

The step that matters

Mixing the pounded rabbit into the hot soup. Adding the paste to hot liquid while stirring keeps its proteins and starches dispersed, so it blends smoothly instead of clumping into lumps.

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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