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Barbecued Rabbit

Barbecued rabbit cooked with Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, vinegar, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Barbecued Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rabbit

  1. Boil the rabbit until tender.

  2. Reduce the water in the pot.

  3. Transfer the rabbit to a pan with the remaining water.

Sauce and serve

  1. Add Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup, vinegar, salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Baste frequently while cooking.

  3. Serve on a hot 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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
The main meat, which becomes tender from long simmering before it is basted.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, salty depth to the sauce.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and body, and helps the sauce brown and glaze on the meat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, glossier sauce.

The step that matters

Baste frequently while cooking. Sugars in the ketchup can scorch on a hot pan. Frequent basting with the sauce builds a glaze gradually and keeps the surface moist, so the meat does not dry out.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, sauce, ketchup, vinegar, pepper, butter):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, sauce, ketchup, vinegar, pepper, butter. 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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