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Roast Rabbit

A whole rabbit seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and herbs, then roasted until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Clean the rabbit and season it inside and out with salt and pepper.

  3. Rub the outside with butter and sprinkle with herbs.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the rabbit in a roasting pan and roast for about 1 hour, basting occasionally.

  2. Ensure the rabbit is cooked through before serving.

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 + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  2. Rabbit + thymetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together210 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + thymetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,758 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the main lean meat that becomes tender and cooked through during roasting.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the outside brown and keeps the surface moist during roasting.
Herbs
Add aromatic flavor to the outside of the rabbit as it roasts.

The step that matters

Ensure the rabbit is cooked through before serving. Rabbit is lean and dries out quickly, so it can be tough if overcooked, yet undercooked meat is unsafe. Checking that the meat is fully cooked, with the thickest parts reaching doneness, matters because the lean meat gives little visual cue.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, 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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