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Fried Rabbit

A rabbit prepared by blanching, breading, frying, and served with a lemon‑flavored gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fried Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Blanch the rabbit in boiling water for 5–7 minutes, then drain and let cool.

  2. Cut the rabbit into joints.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each joint in beaten egg.

  2. Coat each joint with seasoned bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the joints in butter over medium heat for 12–15 minutes until golden brown.

Make the sauce

  1. Simmer lemon rind in a little gravy until flavored.

  2. Boil the rabbit liver for 5 minutes.

  3. Cool the liver.

  4. Mince the liver.

  5. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

  6. Add the minced liver to the gravy.

  7. Boil the gravy for 1 minute.

  8. Stir in cream and lemon juice if using.

Serve

  1. Serve the rabbit with the sauce poured underneath.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Is the main protein, which firms and turns golden when fried.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumbs to the rabbit joints so the coating adheres during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating that protects the meat during frying.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the coating.
Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.
Liver (in the method)
Adds deep, rich flavor and body to the gravy once minced into it.

The step that matters

Fry the joints over medium heat. Medium heat lets the coating brown to golden while the meat cooks through; too high a heat can scorch the crumbs before the rabbit is done.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, egg, bread, pepper, butter, flour, cream. 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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