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Cream of Rabbit

A custard-like rabbit dish made with rabbit meat, vegetables, butter, eggs, cream, and corn flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Cream of Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the white meat from the rabbit bones.

  2. Place the bones in a pan with 1 pint of water, carrot, turnip, and onion to stew.

  3. Pound the meat in a mortar and pass it through a wire sieve.

Make the mold

  1. Add butter and egg yolks to the meat and mix well.

  2. Stir in cream, pepper, and salt to taste.

  3. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into the mixture gently.

  4. Butter a mold and fill it with the mixture.

  5. Place the mold in a pan of boiling water, let it boil, then reduce heat and steam for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the liquid from the bones and thicken with corn flour, cooking for 10 minutes.

  2. Turn the dish out onto a hot plate and pour the sauce over it.

  3. 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. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the meat that is pounded into the smooth base of the dish.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the mixture and help it set into a delicate texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set into a smooth, custard-like body when steamed.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the mixture a softer, silkier texture.
Corn flour
Thickens the strained stock into a smooth sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites deflate if stirred hard, losing the air that lightens the mixture. Fold gently so the foam stays intact and the mold steams up light rather than dense.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, turnip, onion, butter, egg, cream, 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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