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Rabbits, Stewed in Milk

A stew of young rabbit joints simmered in milk with mace, flour, salt, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rabbit and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,067 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Rabbits, Stewed in Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Mix the flour smoothly with 4 tablespoons of milk.

  2. Add the remainder of the milk.

Stew

  1. Place the rabbit joints in a stewpan with the milk and other ingredients.

  2. Simmer gently until the rabbit is tender.

  3. Stir occasionally to keep the milk smooth and prevent burning.

  4. Cook for about 1 hour.

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  4. Rabbit + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rabbit + macetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together364 recipes

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 simmering in liquid.
Milk
Forms the cooking liquid and creamy body of the stew, but its proteins can scorch if left unstirred.
Flour
Its starch thickens the milk into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce as it heats.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the milk.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and stir occasionally. Milk scorches and can curdle or stick to the pan when it boils hard or sits still. Gentle heat and regular stirring keep the proteins from burning onto the base and keep the sauce smooth while the rabbit becomes tender.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, milk, 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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