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Rabbit, Fried

Fried rabbit served with a sauce of Lucca oil, butter, flour, stock, sherry, shallot, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rabbit, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Heat the Lucca oil and butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and powdered spice.

  3. Add the rabbit pieces and cook, stirring frequently, until done.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove the rabbit and stir flour into the hot fat, breaking up lumps.

  2. Moisten with stock and sherry, bring to a boil for five minutes, then strain.

  3. Return the sauce to the saucepan with the rabbit, shallot, and parsley.

  4. When the sauce is about to boil, arrange the rabbit on a dish and pour the sauce over it.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Rabbit + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together157 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Is the main protein; cooking until done sets its meat and gives the dish its body.
Flour
Stirred into the hot fat to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the frying base and the sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce as it simmers and reduces.
Stock
Supplies the liquid that moistens the roux and forms the body of the sauce.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Breaking up lumps when stirring flour into the hot fat. Flour added to hot fat must be stirred smoothly so it cooks into an even roux; unbroken lumps stay dry inside and leave specks in the sauce.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, pepper, flour, sherry, shallot. 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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