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Stewed Rabbit, Larded.

A rabbit stewed with bacon, white wine, broth, herbs, and lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stewed Rabbit, Larded.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rabbit well and cut it into quarters.

  2. Lard the rabbit pieces with strips of bacon and fry them.

Stew and finish

  1. Place the rabbit in a stewpan with the broth, herbs, salt, and pepper.

  2. Simmer gently until the rabbit is tender.

  3. Strain the gravy, thicken it with butter and flour, and add the sherry.

  4. Bring to a boil, pour over the rabbit, and serve garnished with lemon slices.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, gentle simmering.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor to the lean rabbit meat as it fries and is threaded through.
Broth or stock
Forms the liquid that cooks the rabbit and becomes the base of the gravy.
Butter and flour
Thicken the strained gravy into a smooth, coating sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the rabbit is tender. Rabbit is very lean, so high heat or boiling can toughen the proteins and dry the meat. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue break down slowly, keeping the meat moist and tender.

“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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