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Stewed Hare or Rabbit

A stew of hare or rabbit with butter, ham, gravy, lemon, rice flour, mushroom ketchup, mace, cayenne, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Stewed Hare or Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and soak the hare or rabbit thoroughly, then wipe it dry.

Brown and stew

  1. Flour and brown the meat slightly in the butter with the bits of ham.

  2. Gradually pour in the gravy and stew the meat gently for 1½ to 2 hours.

  3. Add salt if needed after the first half hour.

  4. After 1 hour, add the lemon rind.

Finish

  1. Ten minutes before serving, stir in the rice flour mixed with the mushroom ketchup, mace, and cayenne.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Rice + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Rabbit + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Hare or rabbit
The main meat; long, gentle stewing softens its firm connective tissue.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and helps the floured meat brown lightly.
Bits of lean ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour that seasons the meat and gravy.
Gravy
Liquid base that keeps the meat moist and forms the sauce during stewing.
Rice flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce as it heats.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep, savoury umami flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the rice flour. Rice flour mixed smoothly with the mushroom ketchup before it goes into the hot liquid thickens the sauce evenly. Added as dry flour, it clumps and leaves the gravy lumpy and raw-tasting.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, ham, rice, flour, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, ham, rice, flour, mushroom, ketchup. 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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