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Rabbit Jugged

A rabbit cooked slowly in a jar or stewpan with butter, wine, stock, and aromatics, served with fried forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Rabbit Jugged

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Wash and dry the rabbit, then cut it into neat joints.

  2. Fry the rabbit in hot butter until browned.

Braise

  1. Place the rabbit in a jar or stewpan with salt, pepper, onion, cloves, port wine, lemon juice, and stock.

  2. Cover and cook in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Allow to cool, then lift the rabbit out carefully.

  2. Thicken the gravy and pour it over the rabbit.

  3. Serve with fried forcemeat balls around the 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle oven cooking.
Butter
Browns the rabbit surface during frying, adding colour and roasted flavour.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the braising liquid, shaping the gravy's flavour.
Stock
Forms the moist cooking liquid that gives the rabbit and gravy their body.
Onion
Releases savoury sweetness into the braising liquid as it cooks slowly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury braising liquid.

The step that matters

Covered oven cooking at low heat. Cooking gently at 300°F for a long time, covered, breaks down connective tissue so the rabbit becomes tender without drying out. Too much heat or uncovered cooking would toughen and dry the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, pepper, clove, port wine, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, pepper, clove, port wine, lemon. 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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