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Stewed Rabbit

A rabbit stewed in a tomato-based gravy with vinegar, onions, apples, carrots, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cover the rabbit with water and add vinegar.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then add catsup, onion, apple, carrot, tomatoes, sugar, jellies, cloves, and bacon.

Make the gravy

  1. Remove the rabbit and strain the gravy.

  2. Thicken the gravy with brown flour and add butter.

Serve

  1. Serve the rabbit with the gravy.

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 + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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 that becomes tender during slow stewing in liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps soften the meat and brightens the gravy.
Brown flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the rabbit rather than running thin.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour to the stewing liquid.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity and body, forming the base of the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth finish to the thickened gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with brown flour and add butter. Flour must be cooked in the hot liquid to remove its raw taste and to thicken evenly; adding it lumpy or without enough simmering leaves a pasty gravy. Butter is stirred in at the end for a glossy finish.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, vinegar, pepper, onion, carrot, tomato, sugar):

  1. Mangofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, vinegar, pepper, onion, carrot, tomato, sugar. 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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