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Rabbits Smothered in Onions

A stew of rabbits smothered in onions with a butter‑flour stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Rabbits Smothered in Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare and truss the rabbits as directed.

Make the sauce

  1. Thicken the white stock with butter and flour.

  2. Season the stock with salt and pepper, then bring it to a boil.

Stew and serve

  1. Add the rabbits and quartered onions to the boiling stock.

  2. Let them stew until the rabbits are tender.

  3. Serve the rabbits topped with the onions.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 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

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Onions
Add sweetness and soften into the stew, adding body to the sauce.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the white stock into a smooth sauce.
White stock
Forms the cooking liquid that moistens and flavors the rabbit.

The step that matters

Letting the rabbits stew until tender. Rabbit is lean and its connective tissue needs long, gentle simmering in liquid to break down. Stopping early leaves meat tough, while a hard boil can toughen it and dry the surface.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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