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To Cook Rabbit for Breakfast

A rabbit cooked in lard, served with a brown flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Cook Rabbit for Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Cut the rabbit open and sprinkle it with salt, pepper, and flour.

  2. Heat lard in a pan until boiling hot, then add the rabbit.

  3. Fry the rabbit until it is nicely browned.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix brown flour with a little hot water and a small lump of butter.

  2. Stir the mixture into the gravy and season to taste.

  3. Place the rabbit on a dish, pour the gravy over it, and 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Provides the main protein; frying the coated pieces gives it a browned, savoury crust.
Flour
Coats the rabbit so it browns in the pan and helps thicken the juices.
Brown flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Lard
Fat for frying that conducts heat evenly and browns the rabbit's surface.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the rabbit until nicely browned. Browning relies on surface heat and dry, floured meat in very hot fat. If the pan is not hot enough or is crowded, the meat steams instead, turning pale and losing flavour.

“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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