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Rabbit, En Casserole

A rabbit casserole cooked with bacon, onions, wine, stock, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Rabbit, En Casserole

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash and wipe the rabbit, then cut it into joints.

  2. Lard the legs and breast with the strips of bacon fat.

Make the sauce base

  1. In an earthenware casserole, melt the butter and add the sliced onions and cubed bacon.

  2. Fry the onions and bacon until lightly browned.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  4. Sprinkle the flour over the mixture.

  5. Stir over heat until the flour turns a chestnut color.

  6. Moisten the mixture with white wine.

  7. Add the bouquet garni and stock.

  8. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Braise and serve

  1. Cover the casserole.

  2. Cook in the oven at 300°F (150°C) until the meat is tender, about 1½ to 2 hours.

  3. Remove the bouquet garni and any scum from the surface 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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Rabbit
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow braising in the liquid.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that carries into the onions and the sauce.
Butter
Fat for frying the onions and bacon, adding richness and browning flavor.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, building the base flavor of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid once it is toasted and mixed with the fat.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, lifting the flavor of the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour until chestnut colored. Cooking the flour in the fat until it darkens develops nutty flavor and color and removes raw starch taste. Stir constantly over heat so it browns evenly without scorching, since scorched flour turns bitter and the sauce loses its flavor.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, pepper, flour, white 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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