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Baked Rabbits

A dish of rabbits baked with salt, flour, butter, stock, wine, and jelly, then served with a thickened sauce.

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 ↓

Baked Rabbits

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Dress and wash the rabbits.

  2. Season the rabbits well with coarse sea salt.

  3. Roll the rabbits in flour.

Bake

  1. Place the rabbits in a roasting pan and dot with small pieces of butter.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes, turning and basting often.

  3. Remove the rabbits from the oven.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add 1 cup of stock, ⅓ cup of wine, and a little jelly to the pan.

  2. Thicken the sauce, strain it, and pour over the rabbits before serving.

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. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + winetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow moist-heat roasting.
Flour
Coats the rabbits so the surface browns and helps thicken the pan juices.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the meat and promotes browning in the oven.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savoury depth.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the pan sauce.
Jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce as it reduces.

The step that matters

Basting and turning during baking. Turning and basting keep the meat moist and promote even browning, since lean rabbit can dry out in the oven's dry heat.

“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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