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Roast Rabbit

A rabbit stuffed with a mixture of veal, pork, crackers, butter, and seasonings, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and summer savory work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 671 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Simmer veal and pork in water to cover for 2 hours.

  2. Chop the meat finely and mix with rolled crackers, salt, pepper, summer savory, butter, and broth.

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Remove the rabbit's head, open the vent, and draw it.

  2. Wash it clean and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Stuff the rabbit with the hot dressing and sew up the opening.

  4. Position the rabbit on its knees and skewer it in that position.

Roast and serve

  1. Rub the rabbit thickly with butter, dredge with flour, and place in a baking pan with hot water at the bottom.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes at 400°F (200°C), basting frequently.

  3. Serve with a border of mashed potatoes and pour gravy over the rabbit.

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 + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Pork + meattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Pork + summer savorytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meat for the filling, giving savoury flavour and body.
Pork
Adds fat that keeps the chopped meat filling tender and moist.
Crackers
Absorb cooking liquid and bind the chopped meat into a moist dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the outside brown during roasting.
Broth
Moistens the dressing and adds meaty flavour.

The step that matters

Basting frequently while baking. Lean meat dries out in the dry heat of the oven. Regular basting moistens the surface, and the hot water in the pan adds steam that helps keep the meat juicy.

Swap the summer savory

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, pepper, butter, meat):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, pepper, butter, meat. 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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