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Stewed Rabbits

A stew of rabbit, onions, pepper, salt, and water, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper 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 ↓

Stewed Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the rabbits thoroughly and cut them into neat joints.

  2. Slice the onions from top to bottom.

  3. Put the onions in a stewpan.

  4. Add a little pepper and salt.

  5. Cover the onions with water.

Stew and thicken

  1. Simmer gently until the rabbits are tender, about 30 to 60 minutes.

  2. Thicken the gravy with flour.

  3. Use ½ ounce of flour for every ½ pint of liquid.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Onions
Soften in the liquid and add sweetness and body to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with flour. Flour starch swells and thickens the liquid only when it is evenly dispersed and kept hot. Added unevenly or to cold liquid, it clumps and the gravy stays thin or lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, 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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