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Babbit Soup a LA Reine

A rabbit soup simmered with vegetables, herbs, and cream, finished with pounded rabbit flesh and spices.

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 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbits

  1. Wash and soak the rabbits thoroughly.

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

  3. Stew gently for about 45 minutes.

Make the soup

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

  2. Pound the minced meat into a smooth paste and cover it to keep it fresh.

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

  4. Stew the mixture gently for about 4 hours.

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

Finish and serve

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

  2. Season with pounded mace and cayenne to taste.

  3. Pass the soup through a coarse sieve.

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

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,506 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Carrot + macetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Rabbit + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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 into the soup, giving body and a rich savoury flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Arrowroot
Thickens the cream-enriched soup into a smooth, glossy body without lumps.
Onions
Build the savoury, aromatic base flavour of the broth.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and body to the stock.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and arrowroot. Arrowroot thickens only when heated, and cream can curdle or separate if it boils hard. Mixing the arrowroot into the cream first and stirring it in while the soup is just brought to a boil helps it thicken smoothly without lumps or splitting.

Flavor stand-ins for the arrowroot

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

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Leekbetter flavor fit
  3. Turnipbetter flavor fit
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, veal, onion, celery, carrot, mace, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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