Why it works: Rabbit and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,292 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Rabbits
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Skewer the rabbit with the head upright and the forelegs down.
Remove the jaw bones and place them in the eyes.
Cook
Boil the rabbit for at least 45 minutes.
Make onion sauce to smother the rabbit.
Serve
Serve with a sprig of myrtle or barberries in the mouth.
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.
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Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,292 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Rabbit + myrtletop 47% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4 recipes
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Onion + myrtletop 48% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rabbit
- Is the main protein; boiling cooks it through and makes the meat tender enough to eat.
- Onion
- Forms the sauce that coats the rabbit, adding moisture and savory, sweet flavor as it softens.
The step that matters
Boil the rabbit for at least 45 minutes. Rabbit is lean, and too short a cook leaves the meat undercooked or tough. Boiling long enough gives the connective tissue time to soften, so the meat cooks through and becomes tender.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, myrtle):
- Carrotfits better
- Turnipfits better
- Mustardfits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, myrtle. 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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