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Rabbits with Onions

A rabbit dish simmered in a creamy onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rabbits with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the rabbits until they are white and nearly cooked through.

  2. Remove the rabbits from the water and wipe them dry.

  3. Peel and boil the onions until nearly done, then squeeze and chop them, but not too small.

Make the onion sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add the chopped onions, salt, and flour, stirring to combine.

  3. Gradually mix in the cream until the sauce reaches a good thickness.

  4. Simmer the sauce over low heat for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the rabbits topped with the onion sauce.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which is partly cooked by boiling before serving.
Onions
Add sweetness and body to the sauce as they soften during boiling and simmering.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by absorbing liquid as it cooks with the butter.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, and thickens the sauce as it simmers.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the cream. Adding cream slowly to the butter, onion and flour mixture helps keep the sauce smooth rather than lumpy. Simmering then lets the flour starch swell and thicken the sauce evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, flour, cream, 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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