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Rabbits with Sour Cream Gravy

Rabbits simmered in a vinegar and water brine, roasted with bacon, and finished with a sour cream gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rabbits with Sour Cream Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Marinate

  1. Cover the rabbit pieces with vinegar and water in a bowl.

  2. Add onion, lemon, allspice, bay leaf, and salt.

  3. Let marinate overnight.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the marinated rabbits in a roasting pan.

  3. Add the onions and spices, along with some of the marinate.

  4. Cover the rabbits with slices of bacon, paprika, and celery salt.

  5. Bake until nearly done.

  6. In a bowl, mix sour cream, flour, and sugar.

  7. Pour this mixture over the rabbits.

  8. Continue baking until the rabbits are tender and the gravy is golden brown.

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. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Allspice + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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 marinating and slow baking.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade helps tenderise the rabbit meat before baking.
Sour cream
Forms the creamy base of the gravy and adds richness and tang.
Flour
Thickens the sour cream mixture so it becomes a gravy rather than running off.
Bacon
Its fat bastes the rabbit during baking and adds savoury flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sour cream's tartness and helps the gravy brown.

The step that matters

Pouring the sour cream mixture over the rabbits. Sour cream can curdle or separate if it gets too hot or boils. Adding it after the rabbit is nearly done, and baking gently, keeps the gravy smooth and helps it turn golden.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, vinegar, lemon, allspice, celery, cream, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, vinegar, lemon, allspice, celery, cream, flour. 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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