Name: Stewed Rabbit
Ingredients: 2 rabbits, jointed; ½ cup salt pork, sliced; 1 onion, chopped; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 cup water; browned flour, for thickening; salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Rabbit and pork work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 832 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Stewed Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat.
Add the salt pork and onion, cooking until the onion is soft.

Simmer and finish

Add the rabbits and water, then cover and simmer for 1 hour until the meat is tender.
Thicken the stew with browned flour, stirring until combined.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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.

Rabbit + porktop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together832 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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 becomes tender through slow, covered simmering.
Salt pork: Adds fat and savory flavor to the stew as it cooks with the onion.
Browned flour: Thickens the cooking liquid into a rich, smooth stew.
Butter: Adds fat and richness for cooking the onion and salt pork.

Swap the onion

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

Potatofits better
Shallotfits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pork, butter, flour, 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.