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Rabbits Stewed

A stew of rabbit pieces browned in butter, simmered with gravy, white wine, pepper, salt, and sweet herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Rabbits Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Divide the rabbits into quarters.

  2. Flour the rabbit pieces and fry them in butter until browned.

Stew

  1. Place the rabbits in a stew-pan with gravy and white wine.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and sweet herbs.

  3. Cover and let stew until tender.

Finish the sauce and serve

  1. Remove the rabbits and strain the sauce.

  2. Thicken the sauce with flour and butter, then pour it over the rabbits.

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 + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Rabbit + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. White wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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 meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Flour
Coats the rabbit for browning and thickens the sauce for body.
Butter
Fries the floured rabbit to a browned surface and adds richness to the sauce.
Good gravy
Forms the stewing liquid that moistens the meat and builds the sauce flavor.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the savory sauce.

The step that matters

Let stew until tender. Rabbit is lean and its connective tissue needs long, gentle moist heat to soften. Boiling hard or stopping early leaves the meat tough and dry, so keep the liquid at a low simmer with the lid on until the meat is tender.

“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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