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Attereaux of Rabbits a L’ltalienne

A French rabbit dish simmered with mushrooms, parsley, shallots, butter, flour, stock, and egg yolks, served on boiled calf’s udder or bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Attereaux of Rabbits a L’ltalienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a pan, melt the butter over low heat and fry the mushrooms, parsley, and shallots until done.

  2. Add the rabbit pieces and fry gently until nearly cooked.

  3. Drain the rabbit and season with salt and pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. In the same pan, add flour to the herbs and mix well with a wooden spoon.

  2. Moisten with stock broth and let it boil until the flour is cooked.

  3. Skim off excess butter and reduce the sauce until thick.

  4. Add the egg yolks to thicken further, then add the rabbit pieces and let cool.

Assemble

  1. Prepare pieces of boiled calf’s udder or bacon, cut to match the rabbit pieces.

  2. Skewer the rabbit pieces dipped in sauce onto the udder or bacon.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 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 + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it cooks gently in butter.
Flour
Thickens the stock-based sauce as its starch cooks in the butter and herbs.
Egg yolks
Enrich and further thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Butter
Provides fat for gentle frying and carries the flavour of the herbs and shallots.
Shallots
Add a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the base of the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy flavour and moisture to the herb base.

The step that matters

Thickening the egg yolks into the sauce. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot. Adding them off the heat, or after the sauce has cooled slightly, lets them thicken it smoothly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, mushroom, shallot, butter, pepper, flour, egg):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, mushroom, shallot, butter, pepper, flour, 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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