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Rabbits

A rabbit braised with bacon, ale, port wine, mushroom ketchup, and spices, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Remove the gills from the rabbit and season it with parsley, grated nutmeg, a little mace, pounded cloves, and grated lemon peel.

  2. Layer the rabbit and thinly sliced bacon in a jar, adding ale until just covered.

Cook

  1. Cover the jar tightly and place it in a kettle of cold water.

  2. Add a lid on top and boil for 3 hours for a young rabbit or 4-5 hours for an older one.

Make the gravy

  1. Remove the jar, discard any unmelted bacon, and shake the rabbit in a pan with mushroom ketchup, port wine, mushroom powder, butter, and flour to thicken the gravy.

  2. Add lemon pickle and browning to enhance the flavor.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Provides the meat that becomes tender during the long, gentle cooking.
Bacon
Melts into the jar, adding fat and savoury flavour to the meat and ale.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the butter and liquids.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the flour thicken the gravy smoothly.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the gravy.
Ale
Adds moisture and malty flavour during the sealed, slow cooking.

The step that matters

Cover the jar tightly and keep it in cold water while boiling. A tight seal keeps the steam and juices inside so the rabbit stays moist and does not dry out during the long cook. Timing matters too: a young rabbit needs about 3 hours and an older one 4 to 5 hours, so a cook who guesses short may leave the meat tough.

“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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