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Rabbit or Hare, Ragout of

A ragout of rabbit or hare cooked with onions, bacon, lemon, bay leaf, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rabbit or Hare, Ragout of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Slice the onions and place them in a stewpan with the flour and butter.

  2. Heat the pan near the fire, stirring until the butter melts and the onions turn a rich brown color.

  3. Gradually add a little water or gravy until the mixture is the consistency of cream.

Simmer and serve

  1. Cut the rabbit into neat joints and add it to the pan along with the bacon, seasoning with pepper and salt.

  2. Add the lemon and bay leaf, then let the mixture simmer until the rabbit is tender.

  3. Pour in the port wine, bring to a boil, and serve.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 simmering in the liquid.
Onions
Browning them builds sweetness and deep savory flavor for the ragout.
Flour
Thickens the butter and onion mixture into a creamy, smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor while the onions brown.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that flavors the rabbit and the sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce when boiled in at the end.

The step that matters

Browning the onions until rich brown. Onions that are only lightly cooked stay pale and sharp, while deeper browning develops sweet, roasted flavors. Stirring keeps them from scorching, and the flour then thickens the sauce evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, flour, butter, pepper, lemon, port wine. 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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