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Paper-bagged Rabbit

A rabbit joint cooked in a paper bag with herbs, onions, spices, bacon, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Paper-bagged Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Combine the rabbit joints, sweet herbs, onions, cloves, allspice, black pepper, lemon rind, mushroom ketchup, and diced bacon in a bowl.

  3. Add the thickened and browned stock to the mixture.

Cook

  1. Place the mixture into a well-greased paper bag.

  2. Cook in the hot oven for 40 minutes if the rabbit is young and tender, or for 1 hour if it is older.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Is the main protein; slow moist cooking in the bag keeps the meat tender and juicy.
Bacon
Its rendered fat adds moisture and savoury richness to the lean rabbit meat.
Stock
Provides liquid that steams the joints and, once browned, adds depth of flavour.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding body and aromatic flavour to the juices.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury umami flavour to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Sealing the paper bag. If the bag is not well greased and tightly closed, juices can leak or scorch and the meat dries out. A sealed bag traps steam so the rabbit braises gently in its own juices.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, clove, allspice, pepper, lemon, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, clove, allspice, pepper, lemon, mushroom, ketchup. 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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