🥘 Ingredients

2 large rabbits, or 3 small ones; a faggot of savoury herbs, 1/2 head of celery, 2 carrots, 1 onion, 1 blade of mace, salt and white pepper to taste, a little pounded mace, 1/2 pint of cream, the yolks of 2 eggs boiled hard, the crumb of a French roll, nearly 3 quarts of water.

👨‍🍳 Method

Make the soup with the legs and shoulders of the rabbit, and keep the nice pieces for a dish or _entrée_. Put them into warm water, and draw the blood; when quite clean, put them in a stewpan, with a faggot of herbs, and a teacupful, or rather more, of veal stock or water. Simmer slowly till done through, and add the 3 quarts of water, and boil for an hour. Take out the rabbet, pick the meat from the bones, covering it up to keep it white; put the bones back in the liquor, add the vegetables, and simmer for 2 hours; skim and strain, and let it cool. Now pound the meat in a mortar, with the yolks of the eggs, and the crumb of the roll previously soaked; rub it through a tammy, and gradually add it to the strained liquor, and simmer for 15 minutes. Mix arrowroot or rice-flour with the cream (say 2 dessert-spoonfuls), and stir in the soup; bring it to a boil, and serve. This soup must be very white, and instead of thickening it with arrowroot or rice-flour, vermicelli or pearl barley can be boiled in a little stock, and put in 5 minutes before serving.

📜 From Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861). Public domain.