Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
Potted Rabbit
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the stock
Cover the knuckle of hough with cold water and simmer gently for 1 to 2 hours.
Allow to cool, then add the rabbit and herbs.
Stew all together until the bones separate from the meat.
Pot and set
Remove all bones and the muslin bag, then finely chop the meat.
Mix the chopped meat with the cooking liquid and pour into wetted molds.
Chill until set, then unmold and garnish with parsley and sliced boiled beetroot.
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.
-
Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,810 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Rabbit + celerytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together240 recipes
Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
-
Rabbit + parsleytop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together602 recipes
Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rabbit
- Provides the meat that is picked, chopped and bound into the potted texture.
- Knuckle of hough
- Its bones and collagen release gelatin into the liquid, helping the potted meat set when chilled.
The step that matters
Stew all together until the bones separate from the meat. Gentle simmering keeps the meat tender and draws collagen from the bones into the liquid. Boiling hard toughens the meat and makes the cooking liquid cloudy, which weakens the set.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, celery):
- Tarragonfits better
- Thymefits about as well
- Parsleythe original
- Turmericfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, celery. 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.
You might also like
Cream of Celery Soup113 recipes
Celery Stew25 recipes
Celery Croquettes16 recipes
Celery Cream Soup15 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.