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Rabbit Stewed Ik Milk

A stew of rabbit pieces cooked slowly in milk with onion, mace, salt, pepper, and thickened with cornflour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper 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 ↓

Rabbit Stewed Ik Milk

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the rabbit and cut it into neat joints.

  2. Soak and blanch the head and neck in strong salted water.

  3. Pack the rabbit pieces closely in a baking dish, sprinkle with onion, and season with salt, pepper, and mace.

Cook and serve

  1. Fill the dish nearly with milk, cover with an inverted dish, and cook in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 1.5 hours.

  2. About 10 minutes before serving, mix the cornflour with a little cold milk, bring to a boil, and add to the dish. Allow to cook for another 10 minutes.

  3. Arrange the rabbit on a hot dish, strain the sauce over, and serve.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Mace + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Forms the main body of the stew, becoming tender during the long, gentle braise.
Milk
Cooks down slowly into a creamy, mellow sauce that moistens the meat.
Cornflour
Thickens the milky cooking liquid into a smoother, more coating sauce.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens into the milk.

The step that matters

Adding the cornflour slurry. Cornflour must be mixed with cold milk first, then brought to a boil, so the starch granules separate and swell evenly. Added directly to hot liquid, it clumps and the sauce turns lumpy instead of smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, milk, 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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