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
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.
Prepare
Skin the hare or rabbit.
Wash it well in cold water.
Rinse thoroughly in lukewarm water.
If it has a musty smell, rub the insides with vinegar.
Wash again in lukewarm water.
Wipe the animal with a soft cloth.
Roast
Fill it with dressing.
Sew it up.
Truss it.
Roast in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 45 minutes.
Baste constantly with butter.
Dredge with flour before removing from the oven.
Make the gravy and serve
Pour most of the fat from the roasting pan, leaving the browned drippings.
Place the pan over heat.
Stir in a heaping tablespoon of flour.
Cook until browned.
Gradually stir in 1 pint of boiling water.
Season with salt and pepper.
Let it boil briefly.
Serve the gravy hot in a tureen alongside the roasted hare or rabbit and currant jelly.
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.
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together693 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
-
Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
-
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,814 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,448 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
- Hare or rabbit
- Forms the roast itself, and its lean meat sets the dish's main texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat that browns the surface and keeps the meat moist while it roasts.
- Flour
- Coats the meat for browning and thickens the drippings into gravy.
- Currant jelly
- Adds sweetness and tartness that balance the rich, savoury roasted meat.
The step that matters
Cook the flour until browned in the drippings. Cooking flour in the fat develops a nutty, toasted flavour and cooks out its raw starch taste. Stopping early leaves the gravy pasty and bland.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, vinegar, butter, flour, pepper):
- Lemonfits better
- Mangofits better
- Limefits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, vinegar, 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.
You might also like
Rabbit Patties6 recipes
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.