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Smothered Rabbits, Country Style

A country-style dish of rabbit pieces that are boiled or stewed, then baked in butter and milk until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Smothered Rabbits, Country Style

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and stew

  1. Chop off the heads, feet, and thin ribs of the rabbits, then divide each into six pieces: two legs, two shoulders, and two back pieces.

  2. Boil the large rabbit pieces in seasoned stock for about 2 hours.

  3. Add the young rabbit pieces and stew for an additional 30 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the rabbit pieces to a baking pan, add butter and milk, and dredge with salt, pepper, and flour.

  2. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until browned on all sides.

  3. Pour the remaining cooking liquid over the rabbits and serve as 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 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 long, gentle simmering.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and creamy body to the sauce as it bakes.
Flour
Coats the pieces, aiding browning and thickening the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning in the hot oven. The flour coating and butter help the surface brown in a hot oven. Leaving the pieces in too long can dry the meat, so watch for even browning on all sides.

“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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