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Bordeaux Stewed Rabbits

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

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.

Sear the rabbit

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the sliced onion until slightly coloured.

  3. Add the rabbit pieces, seasoned with salt, pepper, and dredged in flour. Cook for 5 minutes, turning to sear all sides.

Stew and finish the sauce

  1. Cover with cold water or weak stock. Add parsley, sweet marjoram, pepper, and salt. Stew gently until tender.

  2. Remove the meat with a skimmer and place on a serving dish.

  3. To the gravy, add the brown roux and Worcestershire sauce. If desired, stir in the chopped mushrooms.

  4. Boil for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and add the claret.

  5. Pour the sauce over the meat, cover, and place in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 5 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + marjoramtop 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

Rabbit
Provides the lean meat that becomes tender during slow, gentle stewing.
Flour
Coats the rabbit so it browns and helps thicken the gravy.
Brown roux
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Claret
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the finished sauce.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, building the base flavour of the gravy.

The step that matters

Stew gently until tender. Rapid boiling toughens muscle fibres and can make the meat dry, while slow simmering breaks down connective tissue into tender, moist meat.

Swap the onion

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

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

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