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Roast Hare or Rabbit

Roast hare or rabbit seasoned, trussed, and roasted, served with currant jelly and a gravy made from the pan drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Hare or Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the hare or rabbit.

  2. Wash it well in cold water, then rinse thoroughly in lukewarm water.

  3. If it has a musty smell, clean the insides with vinegar.

  4. Wash again in lukewarm water.

  5. Wipe the animal with a soft cloth.

  6. Season it.

  7. Sew it up and truss it.

Roast

  1. Roast for 30 to 45 minutes until browned.

  2. Baste constantly with butter.

  3. Dredge with flour just before removing from the oven.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Pour most of the fat from the pan, leaving the browned drippings.

  2. Place the pan over heat.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour and cook until browned.

  4. Gradually stir in 1 pint of boiling water.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

  6. Let it boil briefly.

  7. Serve the gravy hot in a tureen alongside the roasted hare or rabbit and currant jelly.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

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

Hare or rabbit
Is the meat being roasted, forming the main body of the dish.
Butter
Bastes the meat, adding fat that helps it brown and stay moist while roasting.
Flour
Dredged on the meat and stirred into drippings, it thickens the gravy and aids browning.
Currant jelly
Served alongside, its sweetness and acidity contrast with the rich roasted meat and gravy.

The step that matters

Basting constantly with butter. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and coats it in fat, which promotes even browning and prevents the lean meat from drying out during roasting.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, 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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