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Rabbit Pate

A baked pâté made with rabbit, bacon, seasoned mincemeat, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,149 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rabbit Pate

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Layer thin slices of bacon at the bottom of a pate dish.

  3. Cover with seasoned mincemeat.

  4. Arrange pieces of rabbit closely on top.

  5. Add more seasoned mincemeat and shake the dish to settle.

  6. Top with more bacon slices.

  7. Pour white wine over the layers.

  8. Seal the dish with a paste made of flour and water.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the slow oven until fully cooked.

  2. Let it cool in the dish 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. Chive + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and firm as it cooks slowly in the pâté.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that keeps the meat moist during slow baking.
Mincemeat
Adds seasoned, moist filling that binds the layers and flavours the rabbit.
White wine
Adds acidity and moisture that helps tenderise the meat and carry the seasoning.

The step that matters

Seal the dish with a paste made of flour and water. The flour and water seal keeps steam and juices inside the dish during baking. A tight seal helps the meat cook gently and stay moist rather than drying out.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, mushroom, chive, garlic, pepper, white wine, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, mushroom, chive, garlic, pepper, white wine, flour. 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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