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To Roast Rabbits

A roasted rabbit stuffed with a mixture of minced liver, bread, ham, butter, herbs, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Roast Rabbits

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 the stuffing

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the minced liver, grated bread, chopped ham, butter or suet, chopped parsley, lemon thyme, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and beaten egg.

  3. Stuff the rabbits with the mixture and sew them up.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the rabbits over a quick fire, basting them with butter.

  2. Roast for about 1 hour until cooked through.

  3. Serve with gravy or melted butter mixed with lemon pickle.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

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

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

Rabbits
Form the main body of the dish, cooked through by roasting.
Liver
Adds rich, savoury flavour and body to the stuffing.
Grated bread
Absorbs juices and gives the stuffing a soft, moist texture.
Egg
Binds the stuffing ingredients together so they hold their shape.
Butter or suet
Adds fat for moistness, and butter helps the outside brown while basting.

The step that matters

Roast the rabbits until cooked through. Rabbit is lean and dries out quickly, and stuffing adds bulk that slows heat reaching the centre. Checking that the thickest part is fully cooked keeps the meat safe and juicy.

“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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