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Stewed Rabbit

A slow-cooked rabbit stew with onions, carrots, bacon, celery, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stewed Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the rabbit in lukewarm water with a little salt for about 1 hour.

  2. Dry the rabbit and cut it into small joints, then roll them in flour.

  3. Fry the bacon in a pan until crispy, then set aside.

Make the stew

  1. Melt the butter in the bacon fat, then fry the onion until light brown.

  2. Remove the onion and quickly fry the rabbit on all sides to avoid hardening.

  3. If there's excess fat, pour it out, then add the rabbit, onion, diced vegetables, stock, and seasoning to the pan.

  4. Simmer gently for about 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, place the bacon on top of the rabbit to warm through.

  2. Arrange the rabbit and bacon in the center of a dish, strain the sauce over, and garnish with the vegetables.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 during the long, gentle simmer.
Flour
Coats the rabbit pieces, helping to thicken the sauce and brown the surface.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor when frying the onion.
Bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat that flavors the dish and is served crisp on top.
Onion
Softens and browns in the fat, adding sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid that cooks the rabbit and vegetables into a sauce.

The step that matters

Quickly frying the rabbit on all sides. Brief, high-heat searing browns the floured surface and seals in juices. Overcooking at this stage hardens the meat, so it should be done quickly before simmering.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, carrot, turnip, flour, celery, 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.

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