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Rabbit Cream

A savory rabbit dish made with a creamy sauce, baked in a timbale mold and served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rabbit Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the meat from the rabbit bones.

  2. Place the bones in a saucepan with the carrot, turnip, and onion; cover with cold water.

  3. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for at least 1 hour.

Make the rabbit cream

  1. In another saucepan, melt the butter, stir in the flour, then add the stock and stir until the mixture pulls away from the sides.

  2. Chop the rabbit meat, pound it in a mortar, then mix in the eggs thoroughly.

  3. Season with pepper and salt, then rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Butter a timbale mold, fill it with the mixture, and press it down well.

  5. Place the mold in a steamer, cover with buttered paper, and cook for about 30 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the liquid from the bones, measure 1 pint, thicken with ½ oz flour, and cook for 10 minutes.

  2. When the rabbit cream is ready, turn it out onto a hot dish, pour the sauce over, and 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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + turniptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Rabbit + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together315 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

Eggs
Bind the pounded rabbit meat and set to a firm, sliceable custard-like texture when steamed.
Rabbit meat
Provides the main flavour and the body of the cream once pounded and sieved.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth base, and also thickens the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a smooth mouthfeel and helps the flour cook into a roux.
Stock
Supplies liquid and savoury flavour to the base mixture and the sauce.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Sieving breaks down fibres and lumps left after pounding, giving the smooth, even texture the cream needs. Skipping it leaves a grainy result.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, egg, rabbit, meat, turnip. 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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