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Polpettes of Rabbits, a l’iTALIENNE

A dish of rabbit meatballs made with mushrooms, parsley, shallots, Parmesan, nutmeg, Veloute sauce, egg yolks, and bread crumbs, fried in clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Polpettes of Rabbits, a l’iTALIENNE

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove all the meat from the cooled rabbits and chop it finely.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the chopped rabbit meat, mushrooms, parsley, shallots, Parmesan cheese, nutmeg, and Veloute sauce. Heat the mixture over low heat until well combined.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks and spread the mixture into a square about ½ inch thick on a dish.

  4. Once cooled, cut out circular shapes using a tin cutter about 1½ inches in diameter.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat each piece in bread crumbs twice.

  2. In a sauté pan, heat clarified butter and fry the polpettes until lightly golden.

  3. Drain on a napkin and arrange in double circular rows on a serving plate.

Serve

  1. Pour some brown Italian sauce underneath and serve.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mushroom + parmesan cheesetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit meat
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the polpettes.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury depth and helps bind the mixture as it firms.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when heated, holding the shapes together.
Veloute sauce
Adds moisture and body so the filling stays tender rather than dry.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the coated polpettes. Clarified butter has no milk solids to burn, so it browns gently and evenly; the coating needs enough heat to turn golden and crisp without overcooking the soft, set filling inside.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, mushroom, parsley, shallot, parmesan cheese, sauce, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, mushroom, parsley, shallot, parmesan cheese, sauce, egg. 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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