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Ragout of Rabbit or Hare

A rabbit ragout made with onions, butter, bacon, lemon, bay leaf, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Ragout of Rabbit or Hare

5 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Slice the onions.

  2. Put the sliced onions, flour, and butter into a stewpan.

  3. Place the pan near the fire and stir until the onions become a rich brown colour.

  4. Add water or gravy gradually until the mixture has the consistency of cream.

Braise the rabbit

  1. Cut thin slices of bacon.

  2. Add the bacon and rabbit joints to the pan.

  3. Season with pepper, salt, lemon slices, and a bay leaf.

  4. Simmer until the rabbit is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour in the port wine, give one boil, and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

542Calories
15 gProtein
2 gFat
111 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Port Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Rabbitnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + rabbittop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + rabbittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 simmers slowly in the sauce.
Onions
Browning them builds a rich, sweet, deep-coloured base for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a creamy, smooth sauce that clings to the rabbit.
Bacon (in the method)
Adds savoury fat and smoky flavour that carries through the braising liquid.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the onions. Onions must be stirred until a rich brown, because browning develops sweet, deep flavours through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation. Pale onions leave the sauce tasting flat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, lemon, rabbit, port wine, 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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