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Polish Mock Rabbit,

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Polish Mock Rabbit,

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the beef, veal, and pork very fine, removing all skins and sinews.

  2. Mix the meat with butter and the soaked, pressed bread.

  3. Add the finely chopped onion, salt, eggs, nutmeg, and chopped sardines; mix well.

  4. For a finer texture, press the mixture through a coarse sieve.

  5. Form the mixture into a rabbit shape in a greased pan.

  6. Cut thin strips of fat bacon and insert them into the rabbit using a skewer.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, pork, butter, bread, onion, egg):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, pork, butter, bread, onion, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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