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Rabbit, Ragout of

A stew of rabbit pieces browned with bacon, butter, flour, onions, carrots, turnip, and stock, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rabbit, Ragout of

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the rabbit.

  2. Cut the rabbit into pieces.

Brown and thicken

  1. In a large pot, cook the bacon until crispy, then remove and set aside.

  2. In the same pot, add butter and melt it.

  3. Add the rabbit pieces and brown them on all sides.

  4. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes.

  5. Add the diced onion, carrot, and turnip, and cook until softened.

Simmer and serve

  1. Pour in the boiling stock or water, add the peppercorns, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Cover and simmer for 1 hour until the rabbit is tender.

  3. Serve hot, garnished with the crispy bacon.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 long, gentle simmering.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and smoky flavour, and its crisp pieces give a contrasting garnish.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the rabbit browns.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a silky sauce as it cooks with the fats.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and aromatic depth as it softens into the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the rabbit pieces. Browning creates deep savoury flavours through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pot or stirring too early makes the meat steam instead, leaving the sauce pale and flat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, flour, carrot, turnip, pepper. 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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