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Bordeaux Stewed Rabbits

A rabbit stew with butter, onion, herbs, mushrooms, claret wine, and Worcestershire sauce.

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

Sear the rabbit

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan and fry the sliced onion until slightly colored.

  2. Add the rabbit pieces, seasoned with salt, pepper, and dredged in flour.

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

Stew and finish

  1. Cover with cold water or weak stock, add parsley, marjoram, pepper, and salt.

  2. Stew gently until tender.

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

  4. Add the brown roux, Worcestershire sauce, and chopped mushrooms to the gravy.

  5. Boil for 2 minutes.

  6. Remove from heat, add the claret, pour over the meat, cover, and set in an open 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

Rabbit
Provides the meat that becomes tender through slow, gentle stewing.
Flour
Dredging coats the rabbit so it browns well and thickens the gravy slightly.
Brown roux
Cooked flour and fat that thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavor to the finished sauce poured over the meat.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the gravy.
Onion
Fried in butter until lightly colored, adding sweetness and savory depth to the base.

The step that matters

Stew gently until tender. Rabbit is lean and can toughen if boiled hard. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue break down slowly, keeping the meat moist and tender.

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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