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Rabbit, Tinned

A dish made from canned rabbit, ham or bacon, and onion sauce, heated in a jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Rabbit and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,292 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Rabbit, Tinned

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the rabbit from the tin and separate the pieces.

  2. Cut the ham or bacon into small slices.

Assemble and heat

  1. Layer the rabbit and ham or bacon in a jar, adding onion sauce between layers.

  2. Cover the jar and place it in a saucepan of boiling water.

  3. Heat until the rabbit is warmed through, then turn it out onto a hot 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. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rabbit + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Ham + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Onion and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 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 already cooked, so it only needs warming through.
Ham or bacon
Adds salty, savoury flavour that complements the rabbit.
Onion sauce
Adds moisture and flavour between the layers, keeping the meat from drying as it warms.

The step that matters

Warming the jar in boiling water. Heating gently in a covered jar in simmering water warms the meat through without drying or toughening it. Overheating would toughen the proteins and dry the meat, so keep the heat moderate.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, ham, sauce):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, ham, 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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