Skip to main content
Main

Rabbit, Baked, and Macaroni

A baked rabbit served with macaroni, butter, sugar, brandy, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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, Baked, and Macaroni

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter rabbit well and place it in a baking dish on slices of ham.

  3. Bake rabbit, basting occasionally with more butter, for at least 30 minutes.

  4. Add brandy and lemon juice to rabbit.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break macaroni into 2-inch pieces and add to boiling stock.

  2. Simmer macaroni until tender, then strain.

  3. Mix macaroni with sugar, fresh butter, and season to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Combine macaroni with rabbit in baking dish.

  2. Bake until macaroni is golden brown.

  3. Serve in baking dish.

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. Rabbit + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together273 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 becomes tender and juicy during slow baking with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the rabbit and macaroni brown in the oven.
Naples macaroni
Forms the starchy base that absorbs flavor from the stock and butter and browns on top.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the macaroni take on a golden brown colour in the oven.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic note that deepens the flavor of the rabbit drippings.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and meat flavors.

The step that matters

Basting the rabbit during baking. Rabbit is lean and dries out easily. Regular basting with butter keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly, so the meat stays juicy.

“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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRabbit PattiesRabbit Patties6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes