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Rabbits and Onions

A boiled rabbit dish served with a butter‑onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rabbits and Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Skin the rabbits and skewer them for boiling.

  2. Soak them in warm water until very white.

  3. Boil in salted water for about 1 hour until tender.

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions and cut them into six pieces.

  2. Boil the onions in salted water until nearly done.

  3. Drain the onions and squeeze out excess water.

  4. Chop the onions finely.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Fry the chopped onions to remove moisture.

  3. Add flour and mix well, then moisten with cream or milk.

  4. Reduce on high heat.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

  6. Thicken the sauce.

Serve

  1. Drain the rabbits.

  2. Cover the rabbits with the sauce.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  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

Young rabbits
Provide the tender meat that is cooked by boiling until soft.
White onions
Form the bulk of the sauce, sweetening it as they soften and lose moisture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the onions while they fry.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the rabbit.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, turning the thickened onions into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the chopped onions to remove moisture. Onions are very watery. If they are not fried long enough to drive off that water, the sauce will be thin and diluted when the cream or milk is added, and the flour will not thicken it properly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, flour, cream, 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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