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Rabbits with Onions

A rabbit dish simmered with onions, butter, flour, cream, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rabbits with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit and onions

  1. Boil the rabbits until they are as white as possible.

  2. Wipe the rabbits dry before serving.

  3. Peel and boil the onions until nearly done.

  4. Squeeze and chop the onions, but do not chop too small.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, add a bit of fresh butter, a little coarse sea salt, and flour.

  2. Mix in enough cream to achieve a good thickness.

  3. Add white ground pepper if desired.

  4. Simmer the sauce over low heat for ten minutes.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Rabbits
Form the main meat of the dish, turned tender by boiling.
Mild onions
Add sweetness and softness as they cook through.
Fresh butter
Adds fat and richness, and starts the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body, thickening the sauce as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmer the sauce over low heat for ten minutes. Gentle heat lets the flour fully cook and the cream thicken smoothly. Higher heat can scorch the bottom or cause the cream to separate.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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