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Rabbit, with Herbs

Rabbit, with Herbs is a rabbit dish cooked with mushrooms, shallot, parsley, lemon juice, gravy, and optional sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rabbit, with Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Cut the rabbit into pieces the size of an egg, splitting the head in halves if used.

  2. Fry the rabbit pieces in hot fat until lightly browned.

Simmer and finish

  1. Dredge flour over the rabbit and add mushrooms, shallot, parsley, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour gravy over the mixture and simmer gently until tender.

  3. Mix the crushed liver with the gravy and add sherry if desired.

  4. 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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 it slowly in gravy makes the meat tender.
Flour
Dusted on the browned pieces, it thickens the gravy as it simmers.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture that blends into the gravy.
Fat
Conducts heat for frying, and browning it builds savoury flavour on the rabbit.
Gravy
Provides the cooking liquid that keeps the rabbit moist during simmering.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until tender. Rabbit is lean and can toughen if boiled hard. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue break down slowly, keeping the meat moist and tender.

“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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