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Stewed Rabbit or Hare Au Chasseur

A stewed rabbit or hare cooked with sherry, onions, spices, and a brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stewed Rabbit or Hare Au Chasseur

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Skin and clean the rabbit, wiping it with a damp cloth.

  2. Leave it whole or disjoint it as preferred.

  3. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large frying pan.

  4. Brown the rabbit on all sides.

  5. Transfer the rabbit to a preheated iron pot.

Make the sauce and braise

  1. Fry the onion in the same pan until browned but not burned.

  2. Add the onion to the pot.

  3. Melt the remaining butter in the frying pan.

  4. Add the flour and stir until browned.

  5. Gradually add 1 pint of boiling water while stirring.

  6. Pour the mixture over the rabbit.

  7. Add enough boiling water to half cover the rabbit.

  8. Add all the seasonings.

  9. Close the lid tightly.

  10. Simmer gently for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Peel the small onions.

  2. Boil them in salted water for about 1 hour until tender.

  3. Drain the onions.

  4. Remove the rabbit from the pot and arrange it on a hot dish.

  5. Strain the gravy.

  6. Return the gravy to the fire.

  7. Let it boil down briskly for a few minutes.

  8. Arrange the boiled onions around 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sherry + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Flour and butter 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 or hare
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, covered simmering.
Butter
Browns the rabbit and onion and adds richness to the pan base.
Flour
Browns in the fat and thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Onion
Browns and sweetens as it cooks, building flavour in the gravy.
White onions
Hold their shape through boiling and add a mild sweetness to the dish.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Stirring the flour in butter until it browns develops nutty, deep flavour and colour in the gravy. Stopping too early leaves a pale, raw-tasting sauce, while burning it makes it bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, sherry, flour, butter, clove, allspice, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, sherry, flour, butter, clove, allspice, vinegar. 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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