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Lapereau En Hachis. — Minced Rabbit

A minced rabbit dish simmered in a sauce of butter, shallots, garlic, herbs, wine, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,768 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Lapereau En Hachis. — Minced Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off all the meat from the remains of a roasted rabbit and mince it with a little roast mutton.

  2. Break the rabbit bones into small pieces and place them in a saucepan with butter, shallots, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, and basil.

Make the sauce

  1. Cook these ingredients over low heat, turning occasionally, then sprinkle in a little flour.

  2. Moisten with red wine and stock, and let it boil for half an hour over low heat.

  3. Strain the mixture, then add the minced meat along with salt and coarse pepper.

Serve

  1. Heat the mixture without boiling, and serve hot, garnished with fried bread if desired.

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. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Garlic + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  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 bones
Release flavour and body into the stock as they simmer with the aromatics.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth, and helps lift flavour from the pan.
Flour
Thickens the liquid slightly as it cooks with the butter.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness to the base.
Shallots
Add a mild sweetness and savoury base when softened in fat.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture without boiling. Boiling a mince-based mixture can toughen the meat and make the sauce grainy or break it. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender and the texture smooth.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, mutton, butter, shallot, garlic, thyme, basil):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, mutton, butter, shallot, garlic, thyme, basil. 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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