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Rabbit Pie

A baked pie with rabbit, ham slices, forcemeat balls, hard‑boiled eggs, and gravy, seasoned with salt, pepper, mace, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Rabbit Pie

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Cut up the rabbit (which should be young), remove the breastbone, and bone the legs.

Assemble and bake

  1. Put the rabbit, slices of ham, forcemeat balls, and hard eggs, by turns, in layers, and season each layer with pepper, salt, pounded mace, and grated nutmeg.

  2. Pour in about 1/2 pint of water.

  3. Cover with crust.

  4. Bake in a well-heated oven for about 1-1/2 hour.

  5. If the crust acquires too much colour, place a piece of paper over it to prevent its burning.

Add the gravy

  1. When done, pour in at the top, by means of the hole in the middle of the crust, a little good gravy, which may be made of the breast- and leg-bones of the rabbit and 2 or 3 shank-bones, flavoured with onion, herbs, and spices.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

96Calories
7 gProtein
6 gFat
3 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 7 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Rabbitnot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

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

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Nutmeg + rabbittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  5. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long slow bake.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm texture and richness to the layers as they set.
Ham (in the method)
Adds savoury, salty flavour that seasons the rabbit meat.

The step that matters

Covering the crust with paper. Pastry browns quickly in a hot oven, so the crust can darken or burn before the filling is cooked. A paper cover shields it while the interior finishes cooking.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, rabbit, mace, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, rabbit, mace, egg. 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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