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Rabbit a LA Americaine

A rabbit stew with tomato purée, butter, flour, stock, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rabbit a LA Americaine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Wash and dry the rabbit thoroughly, then cut it into neat joints.

  2. Heat the dripping in a stewpan.

  3. Fry the rabbit in the dripping until well browned, then drain the fat.

  4. Barely cover the rabbit with stock, cover with a lid, and cook gently until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In another stewpan, heat the butter.

  2. Fry the flour slowly in the butter until it turns nut-brown.

  3. Stir in the tomato purée.

  4. Remove the rabbit and keep it warm.

  5. Strain the sauce and add ½ pint of the stock to the flour and butter mixture, stirring until boiling.

  6. Season to taste with salt, pepper, a pinch of sugar, and lemon juice.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the rabbit to the sauce, heat thoroughly, 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, which becomes tender through gentle, covered cooking in stock.
Flour
Fried in butter to a nut-brown roux that thickens the sauce and adds toasty flavour.
Butter
Carries the flour for the roux and adds richness to the sauce.
Tomato purée
Adds concentrated tomato flavour, colour and a touch of acidity to the sauce.
Dripping
Fat for browning the rabbit, building savoury flavour on the meat's surface.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Fry the flour slowly in the butter until nut-brown. Flour thickens only once its starch swells in hot fat, and cooking it slowly to nut-brown develops flavour without scorching. Too little heat leaves a raw, pasty taste; too much burns it and gives a bitter sauce.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, flour, pepper, lemon, sugar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, flour, pepper, lemon, sugar. 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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