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Rabbits “Sautes.”

A sautéed rabbit dish with ham, onion, garlic, parsley, thyme, flour, stock, white wine, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Rabbits “Sautes.”

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, melt butter over high heat.

  2. Add raw ham, onion, garlic, parsley, and thyme; sauté until fragrant.

  3. Sprinkle in flour and stir to combine.

  4. Pour in stock and white wine; bring to a simmer.

Cook and serve

  1. Add rabbit pieces and cook until tender.

  2. Strain the sauce and return it to the heat.

  3. Stir in chopped mushrooms and cook for a few more minutes.

  4. Serve the sauce over the rabbit.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  5. Garlic + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,608 recipes

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

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, becoming tender as it cooks in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and liquids.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the base of the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sauce.
Raw ham
Adds savory, salty flavor as it cooks in the butter.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and body to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Sprinkle in flour and stir to combine. Flour added to hot fat must be stirred well so it cooks evenly and does not form lumps, which would leave the sauce uneven. Cooking it briefly also removes raw flour taste before the liquids go in.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, ham, onion, garlic, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, ham, onion, garlic, parsley, thyme. 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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