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To Roast Rabbits

Roasted rabbit stuffed with bread crumbs, herbs, butter, cream, and eggs, served with a butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Randolph (1762–1828) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Roast Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. When you have casued the rabbits, skewer their heads with their mouths upon their backs, stick their fore-legs into their ribs, skewer the hind-legs doubled.

  2. Make a pudding for them of the crumb of half a loaf of bread, a little parsley, sweet marjoram and thyme, all shredded fine, nutmeg, salt and pepper to your taste, mix them up into a light stuffing, with a quarter of a pound of butter, a little good cream, and two eggs.

  3. Put the stuffing into the body, and sew them up.

  4. Dredge and baste them well with lard.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast them near an hour.

  2. Serve them up with parsley and butter for sauce, chop the livers, and lay them in lumps round the edge of the dish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

209Calories
7 gProtein
17 gFat
8 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Mary Randolph (1762–1828). 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. See the original page.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing and the sauce.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Sweet herbs
Add aroma to the stuffing.
Parsley
Adds fresh aroma to the stuffing and the butter sauce.

The step that matters

Roasting the stuffed rabbits. Rabbit is very lean, so it dries out easily in the oven. Regular basting with fat keeps the meat moist and helps the surface brown.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, pepper, vinegar, lemon, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, pepper, vinegar, lemon, 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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