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Stewed Habb or Rabbit

A rabbit stew with butter, ham, gravy, lemon rind, rice flour, mushroom ketchup, mace, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Stewed Habb or Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Wash and soak the rabbit thoroughly, then wipe it dry.

  2. Flour and brown the rabbit joints in butter with bits of lean ham.

Simmer and finish

  1. Gradually pour in the gravy and simmer gently for 1½ to 2 hours.

  2. Add salt if needed after 30 minutes of cooking.

  3. Add the lemon rind and cook for another 10 minutes.

  4. Mix the rice flour with mushroom ketchup, mace, and cayenne, then stir into the stew before serving.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Rice + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Rabbit + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Main meat that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and helps the floured joints brown.
Gravy
Liquid base that forms the body of the stew.
Rice flour
Starch that thickens the gravy into a sauce as it is stirred in.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury depth and umami to the sauce.
Lemon rind
Adds bright citrus aroma that lifts the rich, meaty sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the rice flour mixture. Starch must be fully dispersed in liquid before it thickens. Mixing the flour with ketchup first and stirring it through the hot stew helps prevent lumps and gives an even, smooth sauce.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, ham, rice, flour, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, ham, rice, flour, mushroom, ketchup. 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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