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To Boil Rabbits

A boiled rabbit served with rich white sauce, optionally with mushroom sauce or cream butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Boil Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose a young rabbit and wash it well.

  2. Truss the rabbit firmly with the head turned and skewered to the sides.

Boil and serve

  1. Drop the rabbit into sufficient boiling water to keep it fully covered.

  2. Simmer gently for 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the age of the rabbit.

  3. Serve covered with rich white sauce mixed with parboiled, finely pounded livers, seasoned with cayenne and lemon juice.

  4. Alternatively, serve with white onion sauce, parsley and butter made with milk or cream, or mushroom sauce.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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 through gentle simmering.
Rich white sauce
Adds a smooth, creamy coating that moistens the lean boiled meat.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a mild, creamy body to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the sauce a rounded, savoury flavour and silky texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its fat.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 30 to 45 minutes. Boiling vigorously toughens muscle fibres and can break the meat apart. A gentle simmer lets the connective tissue soften slowly, keeping the rabbit tender and moist. Age determines the time needed.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, sauce, pepper, milk, butter, mushroom):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Mangofits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, sauce, pepper, milk, butter, mushroom. 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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