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Rabbit with Dark Gravy

A rabbit dish simmered in a vinegar and water brine, then cooked with spices and thickened with ginger snaps.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Rabbit with Dark Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. In a large bowl, cover the rabbit pieces with equal parts vinegar and water.

  2. Add the onion, thyme, celery root, lemon, bay leaves, carrot, salt, and pickling spices.

  3. Soak for 1 to 2 days.

Make the gravy

  1. Boil the mixture and add the prunes; cook until the rabbits are tender.

  2. Remove the rabbits and thicken the gravy with the softened ginger snaps.

  3. In a pan, brown the butter and sugar, then add to the gravy.

  4. Boil the gravy until smooth, strain, and return the rabbit to the gravy.

  5. Optionally, add blanched almonds and seeded raisins to the gravy.

Serve

  1. Bring to a boil again and serve with dumplings.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

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

  5. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the meat, which becomes tender through long cooking in the soaking liquid.
Vinegar
Acidity in the soaking liquid that helps tenderize the rabbit meat and sharpens the gravy.
Ginger snaps
Thicken the gravy and add spice and a dark, sweet-bitter flavor.
Prunes
Add sweetness and body to the gravy as they cook down.
Butter and sugar
Browning the sugar in the butter adds deep color and caramel flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the butter and sugar. Sugar darkens and turns bitter if it burns, and the gravy's color and flavor depend on reaching a deep brown without going past it. Watch closely and stop once it is dark amber.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, vinegar, thyme, celery, lemon, carrot, ginger):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, vinegar, thyme, celery, lemon, carrot, ginger. 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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