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Stewed Rabbit

A stew of rabbit pieces simmered with onion, butter, flour, tomato sauce, and optional glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rabbit pieces and steep them in cold water.

  2. In a pot, brown the minced onion in butter.

Make the gravy and stew

  1. Add flour and stir until combined, then brown the rabbit pieces on both sides.

  2. Pour in warm water, add salt, pepper, and tomato sauce, then cover and simmer until tender.

  3. If the gravy thickens too much, add more water and a piece of glaze.

Serve

  1. Serve the rabbit in a circle with gravy in the center, ensuring not too much 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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Rabbit
Is the main protein that becomes tender during the slow simmer.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and helps the rabbit brown when stirred into the butter and onion.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and carries the onion flavor into the gravy.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it browns in butter.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and savory depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender. Rabbit is lean and can turn dry or tough if cooked too hard or too fast. A gentle, covered simmer lets connective tissue soften slowly, keeping the meat moist while the gravy thickens.

Swap the walnut

The recipe marks walnut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, onion, butter, flour, pepper, tomato, sauce):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, butter, flour, pepper, tomato, sauce. 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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