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Rabbit Smothered with Onions

A rabbit stewed in water and served with a butter, onion, nutmeg, lemon peel, cream, and celery sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Rabbit Smothered with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stew the cleaned rabbit in water until tender.

  2. Prepare an onion sauce by melting butter in a pan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the onion, nutmeg, and lemon peel; let it boil together.

  2. Stir in the cream and chopped celery; cook until thick and smooth.

  3. Dish the rabbit and pour the sauce over it.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Nutmeg + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked tender by slow stewing in water.
Butter
Melts to form the base of the sauce and carries its flavour and richness.
Onion
Contributes savoury, sweet aroma and body to the sauce as it cooks.
Cream
Adds richness and, as it reduces, thickens the sauce to a smooth texture.
Celery
Adds a mild, herbal aroma and a little body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the cream sauce until thick and smooth. Cream thickens as its water evaporates and its proteins set gently; heating too hard or too long can cause it to split or turn grainy, so keep the heat moderate and stir steadily.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, sauce, nutmeg, lemon, cream, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, sauce, nutmeg, lemon, cream, celery. 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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