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Brown Gravy for Roast Rabbit

A brown gravy made with rabbit liver, vegetables, and beef dripping, simmered and thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Brown Gravy for Roast Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Slice the onion and carrot, and cut the liver into small pieces.

  2. Melt the beef dripping in a saucepan over medium heat.

  3. Fry the vegetables and liver until nicely browned.

  4. Add the water, bouquet garni, salt, and pepper, and cook slowly for 1 hour.

  5. Strain the mixture and return the liquid to the saucepan.

Thicken and serve

  1. Knead the flour and butter together on a plate, then add it in small portions to the gravy.

  2. Stir and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

  3. Season to taste and add a few drops of caramel for color before serving.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Beef + rabbittop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef dripping
Fat for frying the vegetables and liver, carrying flavor and browning.
Liver of the rabbit
Adds rich, meaty flavor to the stock as it fries and simmers.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the butter.
Butter
Combines with flour to form a paste that smooths into the gravy, adding richness.
Onion
Browns and adds sweetness and savory depth to the stock.
Carrot
Browns and adds mild sweetness to the stock.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter. Dropping the flour-butter paste in large lumps leaves dry clumps that do not dissolve. Adding it in small portions while stirring lets the starch disperse and thicken the gravy smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, liver, rabbit, carrot, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, liver, rabbit, carrot, parsley. 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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