Skip to main content
Main

Fried Rabbit

Fried rabbit pieces coated in egg and cracker crumbs, then fried, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Fried Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Soak the rabbit pieces in salted water overnight.

  2. In the morning, cover with fresh cold water and bring to just below boiling.

  3. Add the baking soda, then drain the water after a few minutes.

  4. Wash the rabbit pieces again and place them in fresh water with the onion, sage, and salt.

  5. Simmer until the rabbit is tender, then remove the meat.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the rabbit in beaten egg and cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot butter or drippings until golden brown.

Make the gravy

  1. For gravy, brown the flour in the drippings and add the strained stock from boiling the rabbit.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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
Provides the meat that is simmered until tender and then fried.
Egg
Binds the cracker crumbs to the rabbit so the coating adheres during frying.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in fat.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, which can help the meat soften during the initial cooking.
Flour
Browns in the drippings and thickens the stock to make the gravy.
Butter or drippings
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the coating.

The step that matters

Brown the flour in the drippings. Flour browns slowly and can scorch if the heat is too high or it is left unattended. Cooking it until golden and stirring evenly gives the gravy a nutty flavor and lets it thicken smoothly when the stock is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, sage, egg, butter, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, sage, egg, butter, flour. 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.

You might also like

Rabbit PattiesRabbit Patties6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes