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Bordeaux Stewed Rabbits

A stew of rabbit pieces browned in butter, simmered with onion, herbs, mushrooms, and claret wine, finished in the oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Bordeaux Stewed Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Skin, clean, and joint the rabbit.

  2. Heat the butter in a saucepan and fry the sliced onion until slightly colored.

  3. Add the salted and peppered pieces of hare dredged in flour, cooking for five minutes while turning to sear all sides.

Stew and make the sauce

  1. Cover with cold water or weak stock, then add parsley, sweet marjoram, pepper, and salt.

  2. Stew gently until the meat is tender.

  3. Remove the meat with a skimmer and place it on a dish.

  4. To the gravy, add the brown roux, Worcestershire sauce, and chopped mushrooms.

  5. Boil for two minutes, then remove from heat and stir in the claret.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the meat, cover, and place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for five minutes 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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

Hare (rabbit)
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Flour
Dredging coats the meat, helping it brown and thickening the sauce.
Brown roux
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Claret (red wine)
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the finished sauce.
Mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce.
Onion
Browning in butter builds sweetness and a savoury base for the gravy.

The step that matters

Searing the floured pieces. Frying the dredged meat until browned on all sides builds colour and flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale searing leaves the stew tasting flat.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rabbit, flour, parsley, marjoram, pepper, sauce. 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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