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Rabbit, Civet of

A braised rabbit dish with bacon, vegetables, mushrooms, stock, claret, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 ↓

Rabbit, Civet of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

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

  2. Fry the bacon gently in a pan.

  3. Remove the bacon and fry the rabbit in the same fat.

  4. Remove the rabbit from the pan.

Make the civet

  1. Return the bacon to the pan.

  2. Add the onion, shallot, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf to the pan.

  3. Sauté the vegetables in the fat for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Return the rabbit to the pan.

  5. Add the mushrooms to the pan.

  6. Add the stock to the pan.

  7. Season with pepper and salt.

  8. Mix the flour with a little water to form a smooth paste and stir it into the pan.

  9. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  10. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the rabbit is tender.

  11. Add the claret and sugar.

Serve

  1. Serve the rabbit with the sauce poured over it.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 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, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering in the sauce.
Bacon
Its rendered fat browns the rabbit and adds savoury depth to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour that balances the rich, fatty sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture that enriches the sauce as they cook.

The step that matters

Simmering until the rabbit is tender. Rabbit is lean and can turn dry or tough if cooked too hard or too briefly. Gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue, so the meat becomes tender while the sauce reduces and thickens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, shallot, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme, mushroom):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, shallot, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme, mushroom. 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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