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A Chipoulate of Rabbit

A rabbit stew cooked with bacon, onions, herbs, mace, sherry, lemon, sugar, and finished with egg yolks and croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Chipoulate of Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Cut the rabbits as for fricassee and blanch them in boiling water.

  2. Remove the rabbits from heat and drain them.

  3. Place the rabbits in cold water.

  4. Remove the second skin from the rabbits and trim ragged pieces.

Braise

  1. Line a stewpan with sheets of bacon.

  2. Add the rabbits, stock, onions, herbs, and mace to the stewpan.

  3. Cut the boiled bacon into small squares and add them to the stewpan.

  4. Cover the stewpan with bacon and paper, and simmer on low heat for 1 hour.

  5. Strain the liquid from the rabbit and skim off the fat.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add enough flour to thicken.

  3. Add the strained liquid.

  4. If needed, add more stock to make enough sauce.

  5. Bring to a boil and stir in sherry.

  6. Return the rabbit to the sauce to heat through.

  7. Add lemon juice and sugar.

Serve

  1. Serve the rabbit on a dish with the egg yolks mixed in, pour sauce over, and garnish with croutons.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Rabbit + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender during slow simmering.
Bacon
Adds salty, smoky flavour and fat that enriches the stock and sauce.
Flour
Thickens the strained liquid into a smooth, coating sauce.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a mildly sweet, acidic note to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce with richness and body when mixed in.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury flavour into the stock during simmering.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour. Flour must be cooked in melted butter before the liquid is added, and the sauce brought to a boil, so starch swells fully and the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps or a raw floury taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, onion, butter, flour, sherry, lemon, sugar):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, butter, flour, sherry, lemon, sugar. 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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