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Bordeaux Stewed Rabbits

A rabbit stew braised with wine, herbs, and brown roux, served with its own gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Bordeaux Stewed Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the rabbit

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the sliced onion until slightly colored.

  3. Add the hare pieces, seasoned with salt, pepper, and dredged in flour.

  4. Cook for 5 minutes, turning to sear all sides.

Stew and thicken

  1. Cover with cold water or weak stock.

  2. Add parsley, marjoram, pepper, and salt.

  3. Stew gently until tender.

  4. Remove the meat with a skimmer and place on a dish.

  5. Add the brown roux, Worcestershire sauce, and mushrooms if using to the gravy.

  6. Boil for 2 minutes.

  7. Remove from heat.

  8. Stir in the claret.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour over the meat.

  2. Cover.

  3. Let sit in a warm oven for 5 minutes 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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hare (rabbit)
Lean meat that becomes tender and succulent through slow, gentle stewing.
Flour
Coats the pieces so they brown and help thicken the gravy.
Brown roux
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty depth of flavor.
Claret (red wine)
Adds acidity and aromatic complexity to the finished sauce.
Onion
Browns in the butter to build sweetness and savory base flavor.
Mushrooms
Add earthy umami flavor and moisture to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stew gently until tender. Rapid boiling toughens meat proteins and can break the pieces apart. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue slowly break down, so the rabbit becomes tender while staying intact.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rabbit, pepper, flour, parsley, marjoram, 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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