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Rabbit Pie

A savory pie filled with rabbit pieces, forcemeat of livers, bacon fat, anchovy butter or oysters, and lemon rind, topped with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Rabbit Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Season the rabbit pieces with salt and pepper.

  2. Toss the seasoned rabbit in butter until half cooked.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Make a forcemeat by mixing the livers, bacon fat, anchovy butter or oysters, and lemon rind.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a stewpan or dish with pie crust.

  2. Fill with the rabbit pieces and forcemeat, then pour in strong gravy.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Liver + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  3. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rabbit + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rabbit + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender during the long bake in gravy.
Livers
Add richness and a deep, savoury flavour to the forcemeat.
Bacon fat
Adds fat and moisture to the forcemeat, keeping it soft and rich.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and holds the gravy and juices during baking.
Strong gravy
Supplies moisture and savoury depth that cooks into the filling.

The step that matters

Baking the filled pie. Baking long enough at a steady oven heat lets the rabbit become tender and the gravy and fat blend into the filling. Too little time leaves the meat tough.

“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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