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Rabbit Pie

A savory pie made with rabbit, bacon, allspice, parsley, onion, and meat-pie crust, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rabbit Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Parboil the rabbit until tender.

  2. Cut the parboiled rabbit into pieces.

  3. Season the rabbit pieces with pepper and salt.

Make the forcemeat

  1. In a bowl, combine the rabbit livers, boiled bacon, allspice, parsley, and onion. Mix well to create forcemeat.

  2. Spread the forcemeat on the bottom of a pie dish.

  3. Place the seasoned rabbit pieces on top of the forcemeat.

  4. Pour in the water or gravy.

Bake

  1. Cover the pie with meat-pie paste.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 1.5 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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 through parboiling and then slow baking.
Boiled bacon
Adds fat and savory flavour that keeps the forcemeat moist during baking.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the forcemeat as it cooks.
Water or gravy
Supplies liquid that moistens the pie and helps the filling cook gently.

The step that matters

Parboiling the rabbit until tender. Rabbit is lean and can dry out or stay tough. Cooking it until tender before baking ensures the meat softens fully, since the pie's shorter baking time may not break down the muscle fibres enough on its own.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, pepper, allspice, parsley, meat):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pepper, allspice, parsley, meat. 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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