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Florendine Rabbits

A rabbit dish simmered in a veal gravy sauce with anchovy, lemon, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Florendine Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbits

  1. Skin the rabbits, leaving the ears on.

  2. Wash and dry the rabbits with a cloth.

  3. Carefully remove the bones, keeping the head whole.

Make the sauce

  1. Prepare a white sauce by combining veal gravy, anchovy, lemon juice, and lemon pickle.

  2. Strain the sauce.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix butter and flour to thicken the sauce.

  4. Stir continuously until the flour dissolves.

  5. Beat the egg yolk with thick cream, nutmeg, and salt.

  6. Mix the egg yolk mixture into the gravy.

  7. Simmer the sauce gently without boiling.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the rabbits.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the meat that the sauce is poured over and served with.
Veal gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the other flavours.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, giving it a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the butter and gravy into a sauce with body.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce as it gently heats, giving a silky texture.
Thick cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sauce's texture.

The step that matters

Simmer the sauce gently without boiling. Egg yolk in the sauce can scramble and curdle if it boils, so it should be heated slowly to keep it smooth and thickened.

“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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