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Rabbit

A simple rabbit stew simmered with bay leaf, onion, celery, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the rabbit in a saucepan with the bay leaf, onion, and celery.

  2. Pour 3 cups of boiling water into the pan.

Cook

  1. Cook and stir until the brown flavoring matter is loosened from the bottom.

  2. Pour the liquid over the rabbit and bring to a boil.

  3. Cook for 5 minutes, then simmer until tender, adding 1 teaspoon of salt after 45 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. If necessary, thicken the sauce, season to taste, and strain over the rabbit on a warmed platter.

  2. Sprinkle with finely chopped parsley.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rabbit + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together240 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid as it softens.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor and mild vegetable sweetness to the stew base.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender. Rabbit is lean and its connective tissue needs slow, gentle heat to soften. A hard boil toughens the meat and can make the sauce cloudy, so keep the liquid at a steady simmer.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, celery, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, celery, parsley. 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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