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Roast Rabbit

Roast Rabbit is a whole rabbit stuffed with breadcrumbs and sausage, roasted with aromatics and butter, served with lemon and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Roast Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the rabbit in salted water for at least 1 hour.

  2. Stuff the rabbit with bread crumbs, sausage meat, salt, pepper, and the beaten egg, then sew it up.

Roast

  1. In a roasting pan, place the chopped onion, carrot, cloves, peppercorns, and bay leaf.

  2. Rub the rabbit with salt and pepper, and place it on the dressing.

  3. Dot with butter and dust the top with flour.

  4. Pour in a little hot water.

  5. Cover closely and roast, basting frequently.

Serve

  1. When done, transfer to a hot platter and garnish with lemon slices.

  2. Serve with wine.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Main meat that cooks slowly and stays tender when covered and basted.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and give the stuffing body.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together while roasting.
Sausage meat
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the surface and promotes browning.
Onion
Aromatic base that flavours the juices in the roasting pan.

The step that matters

Roast covered and baste frequently. Covering traps steam and basting returns fat and juices to the meat, which keeps lean rabbit from drying out during the long roast.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, bread, meat, egg, onion, carrot, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, bread, meat, egg, onion, carrot, pepper. 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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