Why it works: Rabbit and pork work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 832 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Rabbit Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the rabbit into small joints.
Mix the flour, salt, and pepper on a plate, then dip the rabbit joints into the seasoning.
Assemble and bake
In a pie dish, layer the rabbit joints, salt pork or ham, and quartered hard-boiled eggs alternately.
Pour in the stock or water, cover with pastry, and finish as you would for a beef steak pie.
Bake for about 1 hour.
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.
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Rabbit + porktop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together832 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,121 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,334 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long bake.
- Flour
- Coats the joints and thickens the stock into a light gravy as the pie bakes.
- Salt pork or ham
- Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the meat and stock as it cooks.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Add richness and a firm, mild texture to the filling.
- Pastry
- Forms the sealed crust that traps steam and holds the filling together.
The step that matters
Bake for about 1 hour. The rabbit must cook through in the sealed pie while the pastry browns. Too short a bake leaves the meat tough or the filling underheated, while a very hot oven can burn the crust before the center is done.
“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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