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Rabbits, to Cook

A slow‑cooked rabbit stew with onions, bacon or ham, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper 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 ↓

Rabbits, to Cook

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a stewpan or earthenware pot, layer sliced onions on the bottom.

  2. Season rabbit pieces with salt, pepper, and any desired seasonings.

Assemble and stew

  1. Place a layer of rabbit on the onions, followed by another layer of onions.

  2. Repeat layering until all rabbit and onions are used.

  3. Top with thin slices of bacon or ham and remaining onions.

  4. Cover and stew on moderate heat for 2 hours without adding water.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately, enjoying the tender, flavorful dish.

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. Onion + peppertop 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. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Rabbit + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together273 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the meat, which becomes tender during slow, covered stewing.
Spanish onions
Soften and sweeten as they stew, forming a flavorful base for the dish.
Bacon or ham
Adds savory fat and salty flavor that seasons the stew as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cover and stew on moderate heat without adding water. Moisture comes from the onions and meat themselves. Gentle, covered heat keeps the meat tender and the onions softened rather than browned or dry.

Swap the onion

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

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

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