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Florendine Rabbits

Rabbits cooked in a veal gravy and anchovy white sauce with lemon and spices.

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, and wash and dry them.

  2. Remove the bones but keep 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 and mix in butter rolled in flour, stirring until thick.

  3. Beat the egg yolk with thick cream, nutmeg, and salt, then mix with the gravy.

  4. Simmer the sauce gently without boiling, then pour it 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 main meat, which is cooked until tender under the sauce.
Butter
Rolled in flour, it thickens the sauce and adds richness and smooth body.
Flour
Combined with butter, it acts as a thickener so the sauce turns smooth and stiff.
Egg yolk
Mixed with cream, it enriches the sauce and helps it set smoothly when gently heated.
Thick cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smoother, creamier texture.
Veal gravy
Forms the savory base of the sauce, adding depth and body.

The step that matters

Simmer the sauce gently without boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but boiling can curdle or scramble them, leaving the sauce grainy instead of smooth.

“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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