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Stewed Rabbit

A stew of rabbit joints cooked slowly with onion, lard, spices, and claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stewed Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Heat a large flat stewpan and add the lard, letting it melt.

  2. Place the rabbit joints in the pan so they touch the bottom.

  3. Add the sliced onion, sprinkle with flour, and brown both sides.

Stew

  1. Pour in the boiling water or stock, and season with salt, pepper, cloves, allspice, parsley, and bay leaves.

  2. Simmer slowly for 1.5 hours.

  3. Add the claret and simmer for another hour, ensuring it doesn't cook too fast.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering.
Flour
Dusted on the joints and onion, it helps the surface brown and slightly thickens the stewing liquid.
Lard
Fat for browning the rabbit and onion and adding richness to the stew.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour that deepens the sauce during the final hour.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly and keep the heat gentle. Rapid boiling toughens the proteins in rabbit muscle and can break up the joints, while a slow simmer lets connective tissue soften into tender meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, walnut, flour, pepper, clove, allspice, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, walnut, flour, pepper, clove, allspice, parsley. 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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