Name: Rabbits En Casserole
Ingredients: 4 quarters of rabbit; flour; lard or butter; 1 quart of good broth; ⅓ cup of white wine; ¼ teaspoon of pepper; ¼ teaspoon of salt; a bunch of sweet herbs; 1 tablespoon of butter rolled in flour

Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Rabbits En Casserole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the rabbits into quarters and optionally lard them.
Shake flour over the rabbit pieces and fry them in lard or butter.

Stew

Place the fried rabbit in an earthen pot with broth, white wine, pepper, salt, sweet herbs, and butter rolled in flour.
Cover and stew for 30 minutes.

Serve

Serve with sauce poured over and garnish with thinly sliced Seville oranges.

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.

Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,067 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Rabbit + white winetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together132 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
White wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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: Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Flour: Coats the rabbit so it browns in the fat and thickens the sauce.
Broth: Supplies the liquid that gently cooks the meat and forms the sauce.
White wine: Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, savory sauce.
Butter rolled in flour: Acts as a roux that thickens the stew liquid into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the floured rabbit until browned. Frying the flour-coated pieces in fat builds browned, toasty flavour through the Maillard reaction and helps the flour set on the surface. Pale, under-fried pieces give a flatter, less savoury stew.

“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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Rabbits En Casserole