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A Chipoulate of Rabbit

A rabbit stew simmered with bacon, stock, onions, herbs, mace, sherry, lemon, and sugar, served with egg yolks and croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Chipoulate of Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Cut the rabbits as for A la duchesse or fricassee.

  2. Blanch them in boiling water.

  3. Remove from heat, pour off hot water, and place rabbits in cold water.

  4. Remove the second skin and trim ragged pieces off the rabbits.

Simmer

  1. Line the bottom of a stewpan with sheets of bacon, add the rabbits, stock, onions, herbs, and mace.

  2. Cut the boiled belly bacon into small squares and add to the stewpan.

  3. Cover with more bacon and paper, then simmer on low heat for 1 hour.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the cooking liquid and skim off the fat.

  2. Melt butter in a stewpan, add enough flour to absorb it, then stir in the strained liquid.

  3. If needed, add more stock to make enough sauce, then bring to a boil and add sherry.

  4. Return the rabbit to the sauce to heat through, then squeeze in lemon juice and add sugar to taste.

  5. Serve the rabbit on a dish with the hard-boiled egg yolks mixed in, pour sauce over, and garnish with croutons.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Rabbit + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 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 main meat, which becomes tender during the long, gentle simmer.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the strained liquid into a smooth sauce.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and acidity to the finished sauce.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Enrich the sauce with richness and a soft, creamy texture.
Belly bacon
Adds savory, smoky fat and flavour to the stew liquid.

The step that matters

Return the rabbit to the sauce to heat through. Rabbit is very lean and dries out or toughens when overheated, so it should be gently warmed in the sauce rather than boiled.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, onion, butter, flour, sherry, lemon, sugar):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, butter, flour, sherry, lemon, sugar. 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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