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Rabbit Pie

A pie made with rabbit, ham, forcemeat, eggs, gravy, and spices baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 22 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

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 ½ pint of water.

  3. Cover with crust.

  4. Bake in a well-heated oven for about 1½ hour.

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

632Calories
21 gProtein
8 gFat
113 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 11 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Port Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + rabbittop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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 as it bakes under the crust.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firmness and a rich, set texture to the filling in each layer.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the pie after baking.

The step that matters

Baking under the crust with a paper cover. A well-heated oven sets the crust and cooks the meat through, while a paper cover shields the crust from over-browning and burning during the long bake.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, flour, lemon, rabbit, mace, egg, port wine. 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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