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Rabbit Cake

A baked rabbit and beef tongue mixture with onion, mashed potato, bread crumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Rabbit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mince the meat of the boiled rabbit.

  2. Mix the rabbit with minced beef tongue, chopped onion, mashed potato, and seasoning.

  3. Add white stock and mix thoroughly.

Form and bake

  1. Form the mixture into a mold on a dish.

  2. Cover with bread crumbs and bits of butter.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until well browned.

Serve

  1. Serve with mushroom or tomato sauce.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Rabbit + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled rabbit
Provides the main body of the cake, giving it a meaty texture and savory flavor.
Minced beef tongue
Adds richness and fat, helping the mixture stay moist and flavorful.
Mashed potato
Adds starch and body, helping the mixture hold its shape and stay moist.
White stock
Adds moisture so the mixture binds together and does not dry out.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavor on the crust.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until well browned. The crumb and butter topping needs enough oven heat to brown properly, since browning comes from the Maillard reaction and caramelization at high surface temperatures. Underbaking leaves the top pale and soft.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, beef, onion, bread, butter):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, beef, onion, bread, butter. 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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