Name: Barbecue of Rabbit
Ingredients: 1 rabbit; coarse sea salt; water; pepper; allspice; butter; flour; vinegar; made mustard

Why it works: Allspice and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Barbecue of Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the rabbit down the center of the underside and soak it in saltwater for 1 hour under a weight.
Dry the rabbit and remove the head.
Stew the head with water, pepper, salt, and a few grains of allspice for the gravy.
Melt butter and coat the rabbit thoroughly.
Broil the rabbit over a clear fire or in a pan until cooked and browned.
Strain the stewed head's liquid, thicken with butter and flour, add vinegar and mustard, and serve separately.

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.

Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Rabbit + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together56 recipes

Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

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

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, pepper, butter, flour, vinegar, mustard):

Tarragonfits better
Capersfits better
Turmericfits better
Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pepper, butter, flour, vinegar, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.