Skip to main content
Main

Barbecued Rabbit

A rabbit roasted on a grill, seasoned with salt, pepper, vinegar, mustard, and currant jelly or brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Barbecued Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Soak the rabbit in salt water for 30 minutes.

  2. Scald the rabbit with boiling water.

  3. Wipe the rabbit dry.

  4. Grease the rabbit with butter.

  5. Sprinkle the rabbit with pepper and a little salt.

Grill and baste

  1. Place the rabbit on a grill, turning often to cook evenly without drying out.

  2. Once browned, place the rabbit on a hot dish.

  3. Butter both sides of the rabbit, adding more salt and pepper.

  4. In a bowl, mix vinegar, mustard, and currant jelly or brown sugar.

  5. Pour the mixture over the rabbit.

  6. Rub the mixture into the rabbit.

  7. Pour over gravy.

  8. Serve hot.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Rabbit + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  4. Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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; turning it often over the grill helps it cook evenly without drying out.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the surface brown and keeping the meat moist.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances the sweetness of the jelly or sugar.
Currant jelly or brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the glaze brown on the grill.

The step that matters

Turning the rabbit often on the grill. Rabbit is very lean, so it dries out quickly over heat. Frequent turning spreads the heat evenly and limits scorching on any one side while the inside cooks through.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, pepper, vinegar, mustard. 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 PattiesRabbit Patties6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes