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Potted Rabbits

A dish of rabbit meat seasoned with pepper, allspice, cayenne, salt, and butter, baked slowly and then stored.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Cut up the rabbits and remove the leg bones at the thigh.

  2. Season the meat with black pepper, allspice, Cayenne, and coarse sea salt, all in fine powder.

Pack and bake

  1. Pack the meat tightly in a small pan, smoothing the top.

  2. Add a generous amount of butter on top.

  3. Bake gently for several hours.

Rest and pot

  1. After baking, let it sit in the pan for two days before transferring to small pots, adding more butter.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Rabbit + allspicetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together87 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

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, becoming tender and firm enough to pack and slice after slow baking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and seals the meat from air as it sets.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that seasons the meat throughout.
Allspice
Adds warm, clove-like aroma that complements the rich meat.

The step that matters

Baking gently for several hours. Low, slow heat lets the tough connective tissue in rabbit break down into tender meat. Baking too hot can dry the meat and toughen it before it becomes tender.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

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