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Smothered Rabbit

Smothered rabbit is a rabbit cooked with onions, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Smothered Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Clean the rabbit and wash it thoroughly.

  2. Season the rabbit well with salt and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Lay the rabbit flat on a grill and broil it slowly until it is a fine brown.

  2. Boil and mash the onions with butter, pepper, and salt.

  3. Baste the rabbit with butter and pour the mashed onions over it to cover completely.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Is the main protein, cooked by slow broiling to develop browning and a tender interior.
Large onions
Form a soft mashed topping that adds sweetness and moisture as it covers the rabbit.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the rabbit brown while basting.

The step that matters

Broiling the rabbit slowly. Slow, moderate heat lets the rabbit cook through and brown evenly. Too much heat scorches the surface before the inside is done, and basting with butter helps the surface brown without drying out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pepper, butter. 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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