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Gibelotte of Rabbit

A rabbit stew cooked with onions, bacon, claret wine, stock, potatoes, and bouquet garni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Gibelotte of Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the rabbit

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the onions and cook until browned, then remove the onions.

  3. Add the rabbit to the hot fat and brown the rabbit well.

  4. Stir in the flour and cook for 5 minutes.

Stew and finish

  1. Add the stock, claret, salt, and pepper, then simmer for 2 hours.

  2. Add the onions, bouquet garni, and potatoes half an hour before serving.

  3. Remove excess fat with paper.

  4. Taste for seasoning.

  5. Serve.

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 + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a rich, smooth sauce.
Butter
Carries the browning of the rabbit and onions and adds richness.
Claret
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid.
Streaky bacon
Adds savoury, smoky fat that flavours the stew.
Potatoes
Absorb the sauce and add body and starch to the stew.

The step that matters

Brown the rabbit well. Browning creates deep flavour through the Maillard reaction, and rabbit lean meat can taste flat if it is only pale and greyed. Brown in batches so the pieces sear rather than steam.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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