Name: Rabbit Pates
Ingredients: 1 rabbit; 1 teaspoon minced onion; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 teaspoon minced parsley; 2 cups stock; 1 tablespoon browned flour; 2 tablespoons white wine; 1 teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rabbit Pates

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the rabbit

Cut the rabbit into small pieces, removing the bones.
In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat and fry the rabbit pieces with the browned flour until golden.

Simmer and finish

Make stock from the rabbit bones and add it to the skillet along with salt, pepper, onion, and parsley.
Cook for about 45 minutes, then stir in the white wine.
Serve the mixture in pastry.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 as it simmers into the filling.
Butter: Adds fat for frying, carrying flavour and helping the rabbit brown.
Browned flour: Thickens the cooking liquid and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Stock: Supplies the liquid that cooks the rabbit and forms the body of the filling.
White wine: Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich meat.

The step that matters

Frying the rabbit until golden. Browning the rabbit in butter and flour creates Maillard flavour compounds that give the pâté its depth. Pale, under-browned pieces produce a flatter taste, so the meat should be given time to colour before liquid is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, parsley, flour, white wine, pepper):

Shallotfits better
Carrotfits better
Chivefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, parsley, flour, white wine, pepper. 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.