Why it works: Rabbit and cream work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 409 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓
Rabbit Stew
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Chop the rabbit meat into small pieces and season with salt.
Make the stew
In a hot pan, fry the chopped onions in lard until they are red.
Add the rabbit meat and paprika to the pan.
Cover and steam, adding a little water to prevent burning.
Once the meat is tender, pour in the sour cream.
Bring to a boil.
Serve with tarhonya or galuska.
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 + creamtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together409 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,292 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,827 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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
- Rabbit
- Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow covered steaming.
- Lard
- Fat for frying the onions, carrying flavor and helping them soften and color.
- Onions
- Form the flavor base and add sweetness as they cook down in fat.
- Sour cream
- Added at the end to give a creamy, slightly tangy richness to the sauce.
- Paprika
- Adds a sweet, earthy red pepper flavor and color to the stew.
The step that matters
Cover and steam with a little water. Steaming gently with added water keeps the meat from scorching while it becomes tender. Adding sour cream only after the meat is tender, and bringing it to a boil carefully, prevents the dairy from curdling or separating.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, cream):
- Potatofits about as well
- Onionthe original
- Mustardfits about as well
- Spinachfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, cream. 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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