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Rabbits Boiled with Onion Sauce

Rabbits boiled in salted water served with a sauce of onions, butter, consommé, plain sauce, cream, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rabbits Boiled with Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbits and onions

  1. Boil the rabbits gently in salted water until cooked.

  2. While the rabbits are boiling, peel and halve the onions.

  3. Drain the onions and chop them.

Make the onion sauce

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and add the chopped onions; fry until tender.

  2. Add the consommé and reduce the mixture.

  3. Stir in the plain sauce and cream, then season with pepper and salt.

  4. Heat the sauce until hot.

Serve

  1. Remove the heads from the rabbits, split them in two, and arrange them on a serving dish.

  2. Pour the onion sauce over the rabbits 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender through gentle boiling.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, forming the base flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onions and adds richness to the sauce.
Consommé
Adds savoury meat flavour, concentrated as the mixture reduces.
Plain sauce
Forms the body of the sauce, giving it thickness to coat the rabbits.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, mellowing the sauce's flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Reducing the consommé. Reducing concentrates the consommé's flavour and thickens the liquid slightly. Reducing too far can make the sauce overly salty or intense once the plain sauce and cream are added, so watch it closely.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, sauce, cream, 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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