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Cotelettes De Lapereau

A rabbit cutlet made with forcemeat, herbs, and breadcrumbs, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cotelettes De Lapereau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Cut each rabbit leg in two.

  2. Remove the bones, reserving the knuckle-bones.

  3. Flatten the rabbit pieces with a cutlet bat.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Mix rabbit meat, egg, bacon, white sauce, salt, pepper, and aromatic spice to make forcemeat.

  2. Pass the forcemeat through a sieve.

  3. Fry parsley, tarragon, and chervil in butter.

  4. Add the fried herbs to the forcemeat.

Shape and wrap

  1. Spread the forcemeat on the cut side of the rabbit legs.

  2. Shape the coated rabbit pieces into cutlets.

  3. Season the cutlets with salt and pepper.

  4. Wrap the seasoned cutlets in pig's caul.

  5. Fry the wrapped cutlets in butter until golden.

  6. When cooled, insert small bones to mimic cutlet bones.

Coat and serve

  1. Dip the cutlets in egg and breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the coated cutlets in clarified butter until crispy.

  3. Drain the fried cutlets.

  4. Serve the cutlets with tomato sauce.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit legs
Form the main meat base of the cutlets, giving them their bulk and chew.
Rabbit meat
Is ground into the forcemeat, giving the filling a smooth, binding body.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat and gives the outer coating a set, sealed surface.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and adds savoury flavour.
White sauce
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the forcemeat from drying out when cooked.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned crust when fried in clarified butter.

The step that matters

Fry the coated cutlets in clarified butter until crispy. The egg and breadcrumb coating must be evenly applied and dry enough to crisp. Wet or patchy coating steams instead of browning and can break open in the hot fat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, meat, egg, sauce, pepper, tarragon, chervil):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, meat, egg, sauce, pepper, tarragon, chervil. 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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