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Braised Rabbit

A braised rabbit cooked with butter, vinegar, onions, bacon, carrots, celery, herbs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Braised Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Clean the rabbit by removing the head and heart, then soak it in saltwater for 20 to 30 minutes.

  2. Dry the rabbit.

  3. Cut the rabbit into pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, boil the vinegar until almost evaporated, then add the butter.

  2. Once the butter is hot, fry the onion, bacon, carrot, celery, herbs, and flour until golden.

  3. Add the meat extract (or stock), water, pepper, and salt, and stir until it boils.

  4. Simmer gently for an hour or longer, then strain the sauce over the rabbit.

Brown and braise

  1. Heat the butter in an oven-safe pan.

  2. Fry the rabbit pieces until browned.

  3. Cover with greased paper.

  4. Cook in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) until tender, basting frequently.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Is the main meat that becomes tender through long, slow cooking in liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the sauce as it reduces.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and helps it cling to the rabbit when browned with the vegetables.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that carries into the braising sauce.
Onion
Builds sweetness and depth of flavour as it browns in the fat.
Stock
Provides the liquid that gently cooks the rabbit and forms the body of the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the rabbit pieces until browned. Browning creates deep flavour through the Maillard reaction. The rabbit must be dried first, since surface moisture steams the meat instead of browning it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, vinegar, carrot, celery, thyme, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, vinegar, carrot, celery, thyme, parsley. 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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