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Rabbit a LA Francaise

A rabbit stew cooked with butter, salt pork, wine, bouquet garni, mushrooms, shallots, parsley, and served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rabbit a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in a copper saucepan over low heat.

  2. Add the rabbit pieces, streaky salt pork, flour, white wine, bouquet garni, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Cook gently for 30 minutes.

Stew and serve

  1. Meanwhile, chop the mushrooms, shallots, and parsley very finely.

  2. Add the chopped ingredients to the rabbit.

  3. Stew for an additional 10 minutes.

  4. Serve the rabbit with croutons underneath and around it.

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. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rabbit + porktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together832 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Is the main protein, becoming tender and flavourful as it stews slowly in liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour as it melts and begins the browning base of the dish.
Streaky salt pork
Renders fat and salty, savoury flavour into the stew as it cooks.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma and helps build the cooking liquid for the stew.
Fresh mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and moisture to the stewing liquid.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aromatic depth to the sauce.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, pork, flour, white wine, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, pork, flour, white wine, pepper, mushroom. 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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