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Hare or Rabbit Stuffing

A savory rabbit stuffing cooked with bacon, herbs, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Hare or Rabbit Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Pound the mixture in a mortar.

  2. Pass the mixture through a wire sieve.

  3. Stir the puree into a bowl with bread crumbs, herbs, lemon zest, butter, and eggs.

  4. Line the inside of the rabbit with strips of cooked bacon.

Brown the rabbit and make the sauce

  1. Melt 1 ounce of butter in a stew pan.

  2. Add diced uncooked bacon to the butter.

  3. Fry the rabbit in the pan for about 7 minutes.

  4. Turn the rabbit for even coloring.

  5. Remove the rabbit from the pan.

  6. Set the rabbit on a dish.

  7. Add flour to the butter in the pan.

  8. Stir for 3 minutes.

  9. Moisten with broth.

  10. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  11. Skim the sauce.

  12. Strain the sauce.

  13. Rinse the pan.

Simmer and serve

  1. Return the rabbit to the pan.

  2. Moisten with the sauce.

  3. Add the muslin bag with herbs, onion, carrots, and celery.

  4. Simmer slowly for 45 minutes.

  5. Add the turnips and continue simmering until they are done.

  6. Lift the rabbit onto a hot dish.

  7. Arrange the turnips around it.

  8. Pour the sauce over.

  9. Garnish with crispy bacon curls if desired.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Add bulk and absorb moisture to give the stuffing body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping browning and flavor in the pan.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth sauce when cooked in the butter.
Streaky bacon
Adds savory fat and smoky flavor to the rabbit and sauce.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and tender body to the braise.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the butter. Cooking the flour for 3 minutes in the fat cooks out its raw taste and lets it thicken the broth evenly. Adding broth too early or skipping the skim can leave lumps or a greasy, floury sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, lemon, butter, egg, flour, carrot, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, lemon, butter, egg, flour, carrot, celery. 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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