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Jugged Rabbit

A rabbit stew cooked with salt pork, claret, broth, onions, herbs, garlic, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Jugged Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the rabbit

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the salt pork and cook until it begins to brown.

  3. Add the rabbit pieces and fry until lightly browned.

  4. Sprinkle the flour over the rabbit and stir well.

Simmer

  1. Pour in the claret and broth, then add the onions, sweet herbs, garlic, and cloves.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently until the rabbit is tender.

Serve

  1. Transfer the rabbit to a hot dish.

  2. Arrange the onions around it.

  3. Strain the cooking liquid 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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Rabbit + porktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together832 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Rabbit + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together219 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Forms the main body of the stew, becoming tender during slow simmering.
Salt pork
Renders fat that browns the pan and adds savory depth to the stew.
Butter
Carries the browning of the rabbit and adds richness to the base.
Flour
Dusted over the browned rabbit, it thickens the cooking liquid as it simmers.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavor that balances the rich meat and fat.
Onions
Soften during simmering, adding sweetness and body to the stew.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the rabbit is tender. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can break the meat apart, while gentle simmering slowly breaks down connective tissue so the rabbit becomes tender.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pork, butter, flour, onion, garlic. 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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