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Jugged Rabbit

A slow‑cooked rabbit dish stewed with bacon, tomato, shallot, and spices, served in a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,677 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Jugged Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut bacon into small pieces.

  2. Heat the bacon in a stewpan.

  3. Chop the onion.

  4. Stick cloves into the shallot.

  5. Wash the rabbit. Dry the rabbit. Cut up the rabbit.

  6. Fry the onion with the bacon. Remove the onion and bacon from the pan.

  7. Add the rabbit to the pan.

  8. Fry the rabbit for a few minutes, turning constantly.

Bake

  1. Layer bacon, rabbit, tomato, shallot, remaining rabbit, bacon, onion, and lemon in a jar.

  2. Pour enough stock to cover the ingredients. Add salt to the stock.

  3. Cover the jar with thick paper.

  4. Place the jar in a tin with 1 inch of water.

  5. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Prepare a serving dish with a pastry crust.

  2. Lift the rabbit pieces onto the dish.

  3. Strain the sauce. Add ketchup and jelly to the sauce. Stir the sauce.

  4. Pour the sauce over the rabbit before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Shallot + red curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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 the long, gentle cooking in stock.
Bacon
Its fat flavors the rabbit and the stock as it renders during frying and slow cooking.
Stock
Moist cooking liquid that gently braises the rabbit and forms the base of the sauce.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity tang that balances the richness of the meat and bacon.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sweet aromatic flavor that deepens the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the rabbit for a few minutes, turning constantly. Searing the rabbit's surface in bacon fat builds browning and flavor before the slow cook. Constant turning prevents the pieces from scorching unevenly while the surface browns.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, tomato, clove, shallot, ketchup, onion, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, tomato, clove, shallot, ketchup, onion, lemon. 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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