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Rabbit, Scallops of

Minced rabbit meat served in scallop shells with bread crumbs or mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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, Scallops of

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the meat from the remains of the boiled or roasted rabbit and mince it finely.

  2. Season the minced meat with salt, pepper, grated nutmeg, and lemon juice if desired.

  3. Melt a small slice of butter in a saucepan and heat the minced meat over a gentle fire until hot.

Fill and bake

  1. Butter some scallop shells and cover the inside with a layer of seasoned bread crumbs or mashed potatoes.

  2. Add a large spoonful of the savory mince to each shell and sprinkle more bread crumbs on top.

  3. Place three or four small pieces of butter on top and brown the mince in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 8-10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Arrange the shells on a neatly folded napkin and serve very hot.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat from boiled or roasted rabbit
Forms the main body of the filling, giving it substance and savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the top brown in the oven.
Bread crumbs or mashed potatoes
Forms a base layer and topping that add texture and absorb moisture from the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the savoury flavour of the minced meat.

The step that matters

Browning the mince in the hot oven. The mince is already cooked, so the oven mainly heats it through and browns the buttered topping. Too little heat leaves it pale and dry, while too long can dry the meat and crumbs out.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, nutmeg, butter, bread):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Limefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, nutmeg, butter, bread. 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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