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Rabbits Smothered in Onions

A rabbit stew simmered in onions with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion 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 ↓

Rabbits Smothered in Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Thicken the white stock in a pot over medium heat.

  2. Add butter and flour to the stock, stirring until combined.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper, then bring to a boil.

Stew and serve

  1. Add the rabbits and quartered onions to the pot.

  2. Cover and let them stew until the rabbits are tender.

  3. Serve the rabbits topped with the onions.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 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 becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
White stock
Forms the cooking liquid that gently moistens and flavours the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, carrying flavour and smoothness.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, body-rich sauce when cooked with the butter.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the stock. Flour clumps if added to hot liquid without being well combined with the butter first, leaving lumps in the sauce. Stirring until smooth lets the starch disperse evenly so it thickens the stock uniformly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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