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Rabbit, or Hare

A rabbit stew made by frying rabbit pieces and simmering them in a nutmeg-seasoned gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rabbit, or Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Remove the head, skin, and gut the rabbit.

  2. Cut out the waxy glands under the front legs.

  3. Soak the rabbit in cold salted water for 1 hour, then rinse in fresh cold water and dry.

  4. Cut off the legs at the body joint and cut the back into three pieces.

  5. Sprinkle the pieces with flour.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Fry the rabbit pieces in a pan until brown on both sides.

  2. Keep the fried pieces warm over coals.

  3. In the same pan, add a minced parboiled onion and 1 cup boiling water.

  4. Stir in 1-2 tablespoons of browned flour and boil for 1 minute.

  5. Season the gravy with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  6. Pour the seasoned gravy over the rabbit.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rabbit or hare
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during frying and simmering in the gravy.
Flour
Coats the pieces so they brown well and thickens the gravy when stirred in.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the gravy as it cooks in the pan juices.

The step that matters

Stir in the browned flour and boil for 1 minute. Flour must be stirred smoothly into the liquid and boiled so its starch swells and thickens the gravy without leaving lumps or a raw, pasty taste.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pepper, flour, nutmeg. 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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