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Rabbit Pie

A savory pie made with rabbit joints, rabbit livers, butter, bread crumbs, and optional bacon or ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rabbit Pie

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Place the beef steak at the bottom of a pie dish.

  3. Cut the rabbit into joints and scald the livers.

  4. Chop the livers and mix with butter, bread crumbs, pepper, and salt.

  5. Layer this mixture between the rabbit joints.

Add the optional filling and bake

  1. If desired, prepare a delicate filling by mixing scalded livers, brains, bacon or ham, butter, bread crumbs, beaten egg yolk, and seasonings.

  2. Place the filling at the bottom of the pie or form into balls.

  3. Bake for 2 hours.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Beef + rabbittop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Forms the main meat of the pie, cooking down tender over the long bake.
Beef steak
Lines the base of the dish, adding meaty flavour and moisture to the pie.
Rabbit livers
Add richness and a deeper, savoury flavour to the bread crumb layer.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and fat from the liver mixture, giving the layer a soft, binding texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and moisture to the liver mixture.

“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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