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Smothered Rabbit with Onion

A rabbit smothered in a creamy onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Smothered Rabbit with Onion

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Soak the dressed rabbit in salt water for 1 hour.

  2. Rinse the rabbit.

  3. Place the rabbit in a pot with cold water.

  4. Boil the rabbit until tender.

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions.

  2. Boil the onions in a skillet until done.

  3. Drain the onions.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add sweet cream to the skillet.

  2. Bring the cream to a boil.

  3. Thicken the cream with butter and flour mixture.

  4. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

  5. Pour the sauce over the rabbit.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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).

Butter and flour 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
Is the main protein, cooked until tender by boiling before saucing.
Onions
Become soft and sweet when boiled, forming a mild base for the dish.
Sweet cream
Forms the body of the sauce and adds richness and moisture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and melts with flour to help thicken the cream.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.

The step that matters

Thicken the cream with butter and flour mixture. Flour must be cooked into the butter and cream and brought to a boil so the starch swells and thickens the sauce. Adding it raw or without enough heat leaves a floury taste and a thin, lumpy sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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