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Wild Rabbit Pie

A pie made with wild rabbit, pickled pork, spices, stock, and a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Wild Rabbit Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Wash the rabbit pieces and place them in a pie dish.

  2. Add the pickled pork, salt, pepper, mace, cloves, and minced shallot.

  3. Barely cover the meat with stock.

Bake the filling

  1. Cover the pie dish with a tin or plate and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  2. When nearly cooked, remove the pie dish.

  3. Let it cool.

Top and bake

  1. Cover with a good paste.

  2. Brush with egg.

  3. Bake until the paste is done.

  4. Serve hot or cold.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Rabbit + porktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together832 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pork + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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 during slow covered baking.
Pickled pork
Adds salty, savoury flavour and fat that enriches the meat and stock.
Stock
Supplies moisture that gently cooks the meat and forms the savoury juices.
Egg
Brushed on the paste to give it a golden, glossy browning.

The step that matters

Barely cover the meat with stock. Too little liquid lets the meat dry out during the long bake, while too much dilutes the flavour and softens the paste base. The meat cooks gently in its own steam and juices under the cover.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, pork, pepper, clove, shallot, veal, egg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pork, pepper, clove, shallot, veal, egg. 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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