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Rabbit, Stewed

A rabbit stew made with butter, flour, milk, onion, parsley, cloves, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rabbit, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash, wipe, and joint the rabbit.

  2. Place the rabbit in a pot with cold water, sliced onion, parsley, cloves, and a little salt and pepper.

Cook the rabbit

  1. Bring to a boil, skim, and simmer gently until tender.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter, stir in the flour, then add the milk and ½ cup of the cooking liquid.

  2. Boil for 3 minutes, season to taste, and pour over the rabbit.

  3. Serve the rabbit piled high in the center of a hot dish.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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 through slow simmering in liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and carries flavor.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the melted butter. Cooking the flour in fat before adding liquid coats the starch granules so they disperse evenly. Adding liquid too fast or without stirring causes lumps, leaving the sauce uneven and grainy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, flour, milk, parsley, clove, 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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