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Rabbits Stewed

A stew of rabbit quarters browned in butter, cooked with gravy, white wine, pepper, salt, and sweet herbs, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Rabbits Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Flour the rabbit quarters.

  2. Fry them in butter until browned.

Stew

  1. Place them in a stew-pan with gravy and white wine.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and sweet herbs.

  3. Cover and let stew until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the rabbits and strain the sauce.

  2. Thicken the sauce with flour and butter, then pour it over the rabbits.

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 + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Rabbit + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. White wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Rabbits
Provide the meat that becomes tender through slow, covered stewing.
Flour
Coats the rabbit and later thickens the sauce for body.
Butter
Fat that browns the rabbit surface and carries flavour into the sauce.
Gravy
Forms the savoury liquid that the rabbit stews in.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the floured rabbit until browned. Flour and butter brown through the Maillard reaction, building colour and roasted flavour that carry into the sauce. Pale or steamed pieces give a flat, grey-looking result, so the pieces need enough space and heat to brown properly before stewing.

“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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