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Rabbit Soup

A hearty soup made with rabbit, butter, onions, celery, split peas, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rabbit Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the rabbit joints in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Dry the rabbit and fry in butter until half cooked, along with the onions and celery.

Stew and serve

  1. Add cold water, split peas, pepper, and salt to the pot.

  2. Let it stew gently for 4 to 5 hours.

  3. Strain the soup 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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Celery + peastop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Onion + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Supplies the meat that flavours the broth and becomes tender during the long stew.
Split peas
Thicken the soup as they break down during the long simmer, giving body to the broth.
Butter
Fat for frying the rabbit, adding richness and helping the meat brown.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and brown in the butter.
Celery
Adds aromatic depth to the broth as it softens during frying and stewing.

The step that matters

Let it stew gently for 4 to 5 hours. A gentle, steady simmer lets the split peas and rabbit break down slowly and blend into the broth. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and cloud the soup, so keep the heat low.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, onion, celery, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, onion, celery, 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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