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Rabbit, Spiced

A whole rabbit seasoned with bacon, salt, and flour, then browned and simmered in a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rabbit, Spiced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Skin and dress the rabbit, leaving it whole with the head on.

  2. Wash the rabbit in cold water and remove the eyes.

  3. Lard the rabbit with bacon cut into ¼ inch thick pieces, pressing it into incisions made in the thick part.

  4. Place the rabbit in a pickle for three days.

  5. After three days, dry the rabbit.

  6. Sprinkle the rabbit with salt.

  7. Dredge the rabbit with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a frying pan with butter and lard until hot.

  2. Brown the rabbit on both sides, basting occasionally.

  3. Cook the rabbit slowly for 30 minutes.

  4. Add hot water to the pan. Let the water boil. Stir the mixture.

  5. Pour the contents into a gravy 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 the larding and slow cooking keep moist and tender.
Bacon fat
Larded into the meat, it melts during cooking to add moisture and savory richness.
Flour
Dredged on the surface, it helps the rabbit brown and thickens the pan liquid into gravy.
Butter and lard
Fry the rabbit, adding fat for browning and a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the rabbit slowly for 30 minutes. Rabbit is very lean, so gentle heat over a set time helps the meat cook through without drying out. Browning first builds flavor, but high heat toughens the lean muscle fibers.

“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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