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To Florentine Rabbits

A stuffed rabbit served with a white sauce made from veal gravy, anchovy, lemon, butter, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Florentine Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbits

  1. Skin the rabbits, leaving the ears on.

  2. Wash and dry them with a cloth.

  3. Carefully remove the bones, keeping the head whole.

  4. Lay the rabbits flat.

  5. Make a force-meat by mixing bacon, bread crumbs, lemon, thyme, parsley, nutmeg, cayenne, and salt.

  6. Add the egg and mix well.

  7. Spread the force-meat over the rabbits.

  8. Roll them up.

  9. Skewer them to keep the filling inside.

  10. Tie the ears back.

Cook and decorate

  1. Boil the rabbits in separate cloths for half an hour.

  2. Remove the jaw bones.

  3. Place them in the eyes for decoration.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Prepare a white sauce by mixing veal gravy, anchovy, lemon juice, butter, and flour.

  2. Stir until thickened.

  3. Beat the yolk of an egg with thick cream, nutmeg, and salt.

  4. Mix with the gravy and simmer without boiling.

  5. Pour the sauce over the rabbits.

  6. 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Form the main body of the dish, carrying the stuffing and the sauce.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the force-meat, keeping it moist as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Bind the force-meat and absorb juices so the filling holds together.
Egg
Binds the force-meat, and its yolk enriches the sauce so it thickens smoothly.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the white sauce, giving it a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the white sauce together with butter to give it body.

The step that matters

Mix with the gravy and simmer without boiling. Egg yolk in the cream thickens when heated, but boiling can curdle it. Gentle simmering keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper, egg, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper, egg, butter. 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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