Name: Rabbit Soup
Ingredients: 3 pounds wild rabbit or Ostend rabbit; 1 pound pickled pork; 4 onions; 1 turnip; 2 teaspoons corn flour or 1 tablespoon fine oatmeal; 5 pints water

Why it works: Onion and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rabbit Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Cut the rabbit into pieces.

Simmer

In a large pot, combine the rabbit, pickled pork, onions, turnip, and water.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours.
Remove the meat and strain the broth.

Thicken and serve

Thicken the broth with corn flour or oatmeal as desired.
Serve hot.

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.

Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Rabbit + porktop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together832 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pork + corntop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,069 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Turnip + corntop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together208 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: Provides the main meat and flavor that the broth is built on.
Pickled pork: Adds salty, savory depth to the broth during the long simmer.
Onions: Release sweetness and aroma as they cook slowly in the broth.
Turnip: Adds subtle sweetness and body to the broth as it simmers.
Corn flour or fine oatmeal: Starch that thickens the broth, giving it a fuller, silkier body.