Skip to main content
Main

Rabbit, Ragout Op

A rabbit stew with bacon, butter, flour, onion, carrot, turnip, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rabbit, Ragout Op

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the rabbit thoroughly.

  2. Cut the bacon into 1-inch squares.

Brown and build the base

  1. Heat the butter in a stewpan and fry the rabbit until browned on all sides.

  2. Remove the rabbit and keep it warm.

  3. Fry the bacon in the same pan until crispy.

  4. Add the onion, carrot, and turnip; cook until softened.

  5. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

Simmer

  1. Add the boiling stock or water, peppercorns, salt, and pepper.

  2. Return the rabbit to the pan, cover, and simmer until tender.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow simmering.
Streaky bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the pan as it renders and crisps.
Butter
Carries the browning of the rabbit and adds richness to the base.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a ragout as it cooks with the fat.
Onion
Softens and adds sweetness and depth to the sauce base.

The step that matters

Browning the rabbit. Searing the rabbit on all sides in hot butter builds browned flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale, steamed meat gives a flat-tasting ragout, so the pieces should be dry and browned before the liquid goes in.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, flour, carrot, turnip, 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesRabbit PattiesRabbit Patties6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes