Skip to main content
Main

Rabbit, Stewed Whole

A whole rabbit stuffed with liver forcemeat, baked and simmered in a savory sauce with bacon, carrots, onions, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rabbit, Stewed Whole

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Soak the rabbit in lukewarm water for 30 minutes, then drain and dry it.

  2. Boil the liver for 15 minutes.

  3. Mince the liver finely.

  4. Mix the minced liver with beef suet, breadcrumbs, parsley, sweet herbs, pepper, salt, and a little milk.

  5. Stuff the rabbit with the forcemeat.

  6. Sew the rabbit up securely.

  7. Truss the rabbit for roasting.

  8. Lay the bacon slices on top of the rabbit.

  9. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, fry the diced bacon in butter with the carrot and onions until lightly browned.

  2. Dredge flour over the mixture.

  3. Add stock or water, vinegar, mustard, pepper, and salt.

  4. Add the rabbit and bacon to the sauce.

  5. Simmer gently until the rabbit is tender, about 1.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the rabbit.

  2. Keep it hot.

  3. Rub the vegetables through a sieve.

  4. Mix the vegetable pulp with the gravy.

  5. Add extract of meat.

  6. Boil.

  7. Strain off the grease.

  8. Pour over the rabbit 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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender through long slow simmering.
Beef suet
Adds fat to the forcemeat, keeping the stuffing moist and rich during cooking.
Breadcrumbs
Bind the forcemeat and absorb the liquid from the minced liver.
Onions
Add savoury depth and sweetness to the sauce as they brown.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with the vegetables and bacon fat.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that flavours the sauce and browns the rabbit.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the rabbit is tender. A rapid boil toughens the meat's proteins and can break up the rabbit, while gentle simmering lets connective tissue slowly soften into tender meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, beef, parsley, pepper, milk, butter, carrot):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, beef, parsley, pepper, milk, butter, carrot. 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.

More stewed rabbit recipes

in Milk 8French 4 See all 67 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes