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Fried Rabbit

A rabbit prepared by blanching, breading, frying, and served with a lemon‑rind gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fried Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Empty, wash, and soak the rabbit if necessary to remove any mustiness.

  2. Blanch the rabbit: put it into boiling water and let it boil for five to seven minutes.

  3. Drain the rabbit; when cold or nearly so, cut it into joints.

Bread and fry

  1. Dip the joints into beaten egg.

  2. Dip the joints into fine bread-crumbs seasoned with salt and pepper.

  3. Fry the breaded joints in butter over a moderate fire for twelve to fifteen minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Simmer two or three strips of lemon-rind in a little gravy until well flavored.

  2. Boil the rabbit liver for five minutes; let it cool and then mince it.

  3. Thicken the gravy with an ounce of butter and a small teaspoonful of flour.

  4. Add the minced liver to the gravy and give the sauce a minute's boil.

  5. Stir in two tablespoonsful of cream if at hand.

  6. Add a small quantity of lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Dish the rabbit, pour the sauce under it, and serve quickly.

  2. (Optional) If preferred, make a gravy in the pan as for veal cutlets and simply fry the rabbit.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

614Calories
14 gProtein
18 gFat
97 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
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 Eliza Acton. 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Rabbit (in the method)
Is the main protein, which turns tender and white when cooked through.
Egg (in the method)
Binds the bread-crumb coating so it adheres to the rabbit during frying.
Bread-crumbs (in the method)
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in butter.
Butter
Fries the coating to browning and enriches the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so the sauce clings to the rabbit.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the sharpness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the breaded joints over a moderate fire. A moderate heat lets the breadcrumb coating brown gradually while the rabbit cooks through. Too high a heat scorches the coating before the meat is done, and too low a heat leaves it greasy and pale.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, pepper):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Avocadofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, 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.

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