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Baked Rabbit

A simple baked rabbit dish seasoned with salt, pepper, and bacon, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rabbit and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,334 recipes. Both carry 2-pentylpyridine, which smells fat. The science ↓

Baked Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Skin and empty the rabbits.

  2. Cut them into neat serving joints.

  3. Lightly pepper the rabbit pieces.

  4. Place them side by side in a baking tin.

  5. Lay a rasher of bacon on each piece.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1.5 hours.

  2. Transfer the rabbit to a dish.

  3. Garnish with bacon.

  4. Pour gravy over.

  5. Serve.

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. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the lean meat that is the main substance of the dish.
Bacon
Adds fat that bastes the lean rabbit meat and contributes savory flavor as it renders.

The step that matters

Baking the rabbit for about 1.5 hours at 350°F (175°C). Rabbit is very lean, so it dries out easily. Moderate, steady heat over a long bake lets the connective tissue soften while the bacon fat keeps the meat moist.

“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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