Skip to main content
Main

To Boil Rabbits

Boiled rabbits served with a cream and onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Boil Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbits

  1. Truss the rabbits for boiling and boil them quickly until white.

  2. Place the boiled rabbits in a dish.

Make the onion sauce

  1. Peel and boil enough onions to cover the rabbits until tender.

  2. Strain the onions, squeeze them dry, and chop them finely.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the chopped onions with a piece of butter, ½ cup of cream, a little coarse sea salt, and a sprinkle of flour.

  4. Stir over gentle heat until the butter melts, then pour the sauce over the rabbits.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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
Provides the main meat, which is firmed by a quick boil before serving.
Onions
Boiled until tender, then chopped, they become the body and sweetness of the sauce.
Butter
Melts into the sauce, adding richness and a smooth, glossy texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the onion sauce a silky texture.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter mixture so the sauce clings to the rabbits.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce over gentle heat. Once the flour is mixed with the cream and butter, gentle heat lets the starch thicken the sauce smoothly. Strong heat can scorch the cream or cause it to curdle, leaving a grainy, uneven sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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

You might also like

Rabbit PattiesRabbit Patties6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes