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Dessert

Rabbit À LA Lymchurch

A rabbit cooked with onion, celery, peppercorns, mace, and white stock, served with Supreme Sauce, celery puree, ham, tongue, egg yolk, parsley, and rabbit liver.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Rabbit À LA Lymchurch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Wash and joint the rabbit.

  2. Blanch the rabbit.

  3. Place the rabbit in a saucepan with the onion, celery, peppercorns, and mace.

  4. Cover with warm white stock.

  5. Bring to a boil and skim.

  6. Cook until tender.

Plate and garnish

  1. Divide the legs.

  2. Place the legs with the shoulders and back pieces on a hot dish.

  3. Coat with Supreme Sauce and smooth the surface.

  4. Mix the celery puree with a little hot cream.

  5. Place it around the dish to create a border.

  6. Layer the cooked ham and tongue on top of the celery, overlapping them.

  7. Mask with more sauce.

  8. Sprinkle with sieved egg yolk, chopped parsley, and sieved rabbit liver alternately.

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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rabbit + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together273 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in stock.
Supreme sauce
Coats the pieces with a rich, smooth layer that carries the dish's flavour.
Celery puree
Forms a savoury border around the dish and adds a soft, moist texture.
Cooked ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a firmer texture on top of the celery.
Cooked tongue
Adds rich, savoury flavour and a tender texture alongside the ham.
Rabbit liver
Adds deep, savoury flavour and a smooth texture to the sieved garnish.

The step that matters

Cook until tender. Rabbit is lean and can turn dry or tough if it simmers too hard. A gentle simmer lets the connective tissue soften slowly, keeping the meat moist and tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, onion, celery, sauce, cream, ham, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, celery, sauce, cream, ham, 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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