Why it works: Rabbit and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,334 recipes. Both carry 2-pentylpyridine, which smells fat. The science ↓
Rabbit Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the rabbit gently for 1.5 hours.
Cut the rabbit into neat joints.
Place a layer of rabbit in a pie dish.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Cover with a layer of thinly sliced bacon.
Add a layer of sliced hard-boiled eggs.
Top with forcemeat balls.
Repeat layers until the dish is full.
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.
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Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,334 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).
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Rabbit + eggtop 27% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together558 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together50,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
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