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Rabbits, with Herbs

A stew of rabbit pieces cooked with herbs, mushrooms, wine, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

Rabbits, with Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Joint the rabbits and chop the mushrooms, eschalots, parsley, and sweet herbs finely.

Cook

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan and add the chopped herbs.

  2. Add the rabbit pieces and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and nutmeg when the meat is firm.

  3. Pour in the white wine and simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Mix well and place the rabbit joints on a dish.

  5. Remove the bunch of herbs and pour the sauce over the meat.

  6. Serve very 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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through gentle simmering in the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the herbs and mushrooms into the dish.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and helps flavour the sauce as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the rabbit pieces.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce as they cook.

The step that matters

Simmering the rabbit in the wine. Simmering gently keeps the meat tender and lets the sauce reduce without the rabbit drying out or toughening. Boiling hard can make the meat tough.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, mushroom, parsley, butter, 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.

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