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Barbecued Rabbit

A whole rabbit roasted and glazed with butter, vinegar, mustard, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Barbecued Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Clean and wash the rabbit, then open it along the underside.

  2. Soak the rabbit in salted water for 30 minutes, using a small plate to keep it submerged.

  3. Dry the rabbit and make 8-10 gashes across the backbone.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the rabbit whole, turning often until browned and tender.

  2. Place the rabbit on a hot dish, season with salt and pepper, and add plenty of butter.

  3. Cover and place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 minutes.

  4. Heat vinegar and mustard in a tin cup, then pour over the hot rabbit.

  5. Garnish with crispy parsley 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. 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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender and browned during broiling.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the hot rabbit and helps it brown.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the meat and butter.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharpness and flavour that blends with the hot vinegar sauce.

The step that matters

Broil the rabbit whole, turning often. Frequent turning exposes all sides to heat so the rabbit browns evenly and cooks through without scorching the thinner parts. Lean rabbit dries out quickly, so watching it closely keeps it tender.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pepper, butter, vinegar, mustard. 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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