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Rabbit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with rabbit, bacon, ham, spices, milk, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rabbit Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the basin

  1. Grease a pudding basin.

  2. Line the basin with shortcrust pastry.

Fill and cover

  1. Fill the basin with minced rabbit, bacon, seasoning, and stock.

  2. Cover the basin with more pastry.

  3. Place a greased paper on top.

Steam

  1. Steam for 2 hours.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Nutmeg + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Forms the minced meat filling that gives the pudding its main body and savoury flavour.
Bacon
Adds fat and salty, smoky flavour that carries into the meat filling.
Shortcrust pastry
Lines and covers the basin, holding the filling together and forming the outer crust.
Eggs
Help bind the filling and set it into a firmer, sliceable texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the filling, keeping it soft and tender.

The step that matters

Place a greased paper on top. The greased paper covers the pastry during steaming so it does not stick and the crust is not soaked by condensing steam. Steam is needed to cook the filling through gently, so the covering must fit snugly without sealing in excess pressure.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, nutmeg, lemon, ham, milk, corn, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, nutmeg, lemon, ham, milk, corn, flour. 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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