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To Boil Rabbits

A boiled rabbit served with rich white sauce, livers, cayenne, lemon, onion sauce, parsley, butter, milk or cream, or mushroom sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Boil Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose a young rabbit and wash it well.

  2. Truss the rabbit firmly, turning the head and skewering it to the sides.

Cook and serve

  1. Drop the rabbit into sufficient boiling water to keep it covered.

  2. Simmer gently for 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the age of the rabbit.

  3. Serve with a rich white sauce mixed with parboiled, finely pounded livers, seasoned with cayenne and lemon juice.

  4. Alternatively, serve with white onion sauce, parsley and butter made with milk or cream, or mushroom 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 gentle simmering in water.
Rich white sauce
Adds moisture and richness to the lean meat when served over it.
Livers from the rabbit
Pounded into the white sauce, they thicken it and add a deeper, earthier flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its fattiness.
Milk or cream
Makes the butter sauce smooth and rich, adding moisture and a silky texture.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 30 to 45 minutes. Gentle simmering keeps the rabbit's meat tender and moist. A hard boil toughens muscle proteins and can make the meat dry and stringy, so the water should stay just below a rolling boil.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, sauce, liver, pepper, lemon, parsley, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, sauce, liver, pepper, lemon, parsley, butter. 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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