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Stewed Rabbit

A rabbit stew made with water, Port wine, mace, flour, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Stewed Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rabbit pieces and place them in a stewpan.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then add water.

Stew

  1. When the water has nearly evaporated, add Port wine and mace.

  2. Mix flour with butter and add to the stewpan.

  3. Let it stew gently until the rabbit is tender, then serve hot.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Port wine + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together695 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and flavourful as it slowly stews.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce as it heats with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth texture.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Let it stew gently until the rabbit is tender. Rabbit is lean and can turn tough or dry if boiled hard. A gentle, low simmer lets the connective tissue break down slowly, so the meat becomes tender and the sauce stays smooth rather than reducing too fast or scorching.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, port wine, flour, butter, pepper. 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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