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Jugged Rabbit

A rabbit braised in a buttery gravy with onion, spices, lemon juice, mushroom ketchup, and optional sherry, served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Jugged Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Cut the rabbit into pieces and roll each piece in flour.

  2. Heat the butter in a frying pan and brown the meat on all sides.

  3. Remove the meat and place it in a saucepan.

Make the gravy

  1. In the frying pan, add 2 tablespoons of flour to the fat and stir until brown.

  2. Add the water and cook for 10 minutes, then pour the gravy over the meat.

Braise

  1. Add salt, pepper, spice, and the uncut onion.

  2. Cover closely and simmer for 1.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the lemon juice, mushroom ketchup, and sherry wine just before serving.

  2. Serve immediately with boiled rice.

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

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

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Main protein that becomes tender through long, covered simmering in liquid.
Butter
Fat that carries heat for browning the meat and adds richness.
Flour
Coats the meat for browning and thickens the gravy as it cooks.
Water
Forms the braising liquid that becomes the gravy over the meat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury gravy.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury, umami depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the meat on all sides. Browning triggers the Maillard reaction, which creates deep savoury flavour and colour. Pale, unbrowned meat yields a flatter gravy, so the pieces need dry surfaces and enough space in the pan.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, mushroom):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, mushroom. 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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