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Salad

Rabbit Salad

A salad of roasted rabbit pieces with cabbage lettuce, dressed in plain dressing, mustard, mayonnaise, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Rabbit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the flesh of the roasted rabbits into neat pieces and place in a bowl.

  2. Cover the meat with plain dressing and add minced salad herbs; let stand for 4 hours.

Assemble and dress the salad

  1. In a salad bowl, place the leaves of the cabbage lettuce.

  2. Drain the meat and add it to the lettuce.

  3. In a soup plate, mix French mustard with the dressing from the meat, then gradually add mayonnaise and pour over the salad.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  4. Rabbit + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  5. Rabbit + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together315 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Roasted rabbits
Provides the main protein and savoury meat flavour of the salad.
Cabbage lettuce
Forms the crisp leaf base that holds the meat and dressing.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creamy richness to the dressing.
French mustard
Adds sharp acidity and sharpness that balances the rich mayonnaise.

The step that matters

Gradually adding mayonnaise to the mustard and dressing. Adding mayonnaise slowly lets it emulsify smoothly into the mustard and meat dressing. Dumping it in at once can split the sauce into a greasy, uneven coating.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, lettuce, mustard, meat):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, lettuce, mustard, meat. 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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