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Roast Rabbit

A whole rabbit stuffed with bread crumbs and sausage, roasted with vegetables and spices, served with lemon and cranberry jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Roast Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the cleaned rabbit in salted water for at least 1 hour.

  2. Prepare the stuffing by mixing bread crumbs, sausage meat, salt, pepper, and the beaten egg.

  3. Alternatively, use soaked bread mixed with the rabbit's liver and heart, finely chopped and parboiled.

  4. Stuff the rabbit with the mixture and sew it up.

Roast

  1. In a roasting pan, place chopped onion, carrot, cloves, peppercorns, and bay leaf.

  2. Rub the rabbit with salt and pepper.

  3. Place the rabbit on the vegetables.

  4. Dot the rabbit with butter.

  5. Sift flour over the top.

  6. Pour hot water into the bottom of the pan.

  7. Cover the pan tightly.

  8. Roast the rabbit, basting frequently, until cooked through.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot platter, garnished with lemon slices and cranberry jelly.

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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Rabbit + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together315 recipes

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

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Is the main protein, cooked whole until tender and cooked through.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and bind the stuffing so it holds together while roasting.
Sausage meat
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the stuffing, keeping it moist.
Egg
Binds the stuffing ingredients together so they set as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavour and encourages browning on the surface.
Flour
Sifted over the top to help thicken the pan juices and aid browning.

The step that matters

Cover the pan tightly and baste frequently. Covering traps steam so the rabbit cooks through gently and stays moist, while regular basting returns juices to the surface, keeping lean meat from drying out.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, bread, meat, egg, onion, carrot, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, bread, meat, egg, onion, carrot, 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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