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Stewed Rabbit

A rabbit stew with bacon, carrot, onion, shallot, flour, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the rabbit into neat pieces with a sharp knife.

  2. Wash the rabbit pieces and dry them with a clean cloth.

  3. Fry the bacon pieces in a saucepan for about 6 minutes, then remove and set aside.

Brown and stew

  1. In the same saucepan, brown the rabbit pieces in the bacon fat, turning occasionally.

  2. Add the carrot, onion, shallot, fried bacon, flour, salt, and pepper to the saucepan.

  3. Pour in the stock or water, stir well, and bring to a boil.

  4. Skim the surface, then reduce heat and simmer gently for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the rabbit and bacon on a hot dish, straining the sauce over it.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during slow simmering.
Bacon
Its fat browns the rabbit and its savoury flavour carries into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce as it simmers.
Onion
Softens during stewing and adds sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Carrot
Softens during stewing and adds gentle sweetness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Skim the surface before simmering. Once the stock comes to a boil, foam and fat rise to the top. Skimming removes them so the sauce stays clean-tasting and not greasy, and the gentle simmer keeps the rabbit tender rather than tough.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, carrot, 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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