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Rabbits with Onions

A dish of boiled rabbits served with a butter‑onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rabbits with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Boil the rabbits until they are white and cooked through.

  2. Wipe the rabbits dry and set aside.

Make the onion sauce

  1. Boil the peeled onions until nearly done, then squeeze and chop them, but not too small.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then add the chopped onions, salt, and flour.

  3. Stir in enough cream to achieve a good thickness.

  4. Simmer the sauce over low heat for ten minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the onion sauce over the rabbits before serving.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which is cooked through before being served.
Mild onions
Supply the bulk and mild sweetness of the sauce once boiled and chopped.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when melted at the start of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce together with the butter and onions.
Cream
Adds moisture and body, thickening the sauce into a smooth coating.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream gradually. Adding cream all at once can thin or unevenly thicken a flour-based sauce. Adding it gradually and simmering lets the starch in the flour hydrate and thicken evenly, giving a smooth, good-thickness sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, flour, cream, 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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