Rabbit Soup à la Reine

Ingredients

• three young rabbits
• seven pints of cold water or of clear veal broth
• two mild onions of moderate size
• a head of celery
• three carrots
• a faggot of savoury herbs
• two blades of mace
• a half-teaspoonful of peppercorns
• an ounce of salt
• a pint and a quarter of good cream
• a tablespoonful of the best arrow-root

Method

1. 1

   Wash and soak the rabbits, then put them in a pot with water or broth.

2. 2

   Stew for about 45 minutes.

3. 3

   Remove the meat, mince it, and pound it to a paste.

4. 4

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

5. 5

   Stew for 3 hours, strain, and mix the stock with the pounded rabbit.

6. 6

   Season and pass through a sieve.

7. 7

   Heat and stir in cream mixed with arrow-root.

Nutrition per serving

Estimated from matched ingredients across 8 servings.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Modern cookery, in all its branches (1884) by Eliza Acton, page 57. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

RABBIT SOUP 1 LA REINE. Wash and soak thoroughly three young rabhita, put them whole into the soup-pot, and pour on them seven pints of cold water or of clear veal broth ; when they have stewed gently about three quarters of an hour lift them out, and take off the flesh of the backs, with a little from the legs should there not be half a pound of the former ; strip off the skin, mince the meat very small, and pound it to the smoothest paste ; cover it from the air, and set it by. Put back into the soup the bodies of the rabbits, with two mild onions of moderate size, a head of celery, three carrots, a faggot of savoury herbs, two blades of mace, a half-teaspoonful of peppercorns, and an ounce of salt. Stew the whole softly three hours ; strain it off, let it stand to settle, pour it gently from the sediment, put from four to five pints into a clean stewpan, and mix it very gradually while hot with the pounded rabbit-flesh ; this must be done with care, for if the liquid be not added in very small portions at first, the meat will gather into lumps and will not easily be worked smooth afterwards. Add as much pounded mace and cayenne as will season the soup pleasantly, and pass it through a coarse but very clean sieve ; wipe out the stewpan, put back the soup into it, and stir in when it boils, a pint and a quarter of good cream* mixed with a tablespoonful of the best arrow -root : salt, if needed, should be thrown in previously. Young rabbits, 3; water, or clear veal broth, 7 pints : f of an hour. Remains of rabbits ; onions, 2 ; celery, 1 head ; carrots, 3 ; savoury herbs ; mace, 2 blades ; white peppercorns, a half-teaspoonful ; salt, 1 oz. : 3 hours. Soup, 4 to 5 pints ; pounded rabbit-flesh, 8 oz. ; salt, mace, and cayenne, if needed ; cream, 1 £ pint ; arrowroot, 1 tablespoonful (or 1£ ounce). BROWN RABBIT SOUP. Cut down into joints, flour, and fry lightly, two full grown, or three young rabbits

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.