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Rabbit, Croquettes of

Rabbit croquettes made from minced roast rabbit and lean ham, seasoned with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rabbit, Croquettes of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove skin and sinew from the roast rabbit and mince the meat finely.

  2. Add lean ham, pepper, coarse sea salt, and grated nutmeg to the minced meat.

  3. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  4. Add the meat mixture and cream or white sauce, stirring over low heat for 5 to 6 minutes.

  5. Taste and adjust seasoning.

  6. Spread the mixture on a dish to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into corks or balls.

  2. Brush the shaped croquettes with oil.

  3. Roll them in beaten egg and bread crumbs.

  4. Fry in hot oil until crisp and lightly browned, about 5 to 7 minutes.

  5. Drain the croquettes on paper towels.

  6. Sprinkle with salt.

  7. Garnish with parsley before serving.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Meat + rabbittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together315 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat from roast rabbit
Forms the main body of the croquettes and gives them their flavour.
Thick cream or white sauce
Adds moisture and binds the minced meat so it holds its shape.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the minced meat filling.
Egg
Coats the shaped croquettes so the bread crumbs adhere and brown evenly.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling, carrying flavour and softening texture.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before shaping. Spreading the filling to cool lets it firm up enough to hold its shape. Shaping it warm makes it soft and sticky, so the croquettes can fall apart in the hot oil.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rabbit, ham, pepper, butter, cream, egg):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rabbit, ham, pepper, butter, cream, egg. 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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