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Fried Rabbit

A rabbit dish where pieces are boiled, coated in egg and cracker crumbs, fried, then served with a milk or cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the rabbit joints for a few minutes, then let them cool.

  2. Dip the cooled rabbit pieces into the beaten eggs, then roll them in cracker crumbs seasoned with salt and pepper.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Fry the coated rabbit pieces in a mixture of butter and lard until golden brown.

  2. Remove the rabbit from the pan and thicken the remaining fat with flour.

  3. Stir in the milk or cream and bring to a boil, then pour over the fried rabbit.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with onion sauce and garnish with sliced lemon.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 main meat, which is cooked through by boiling before frying.
Eggs
Bind the cracker crumb coating so it adheres to the rabbit pieces.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating when fried.
Flour
Thickens the pan fat into a smooth gravy.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and body to the gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the coated rabbit until golden brown. The coating needs enough hot fat to brown and crisp without burning. Frying in a mix of butter and lard keeps the heat steady and the coating crisp.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, egg, pepper, butter, flour, milk, sauce. 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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