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Rabbit Pie

A layered rabbit pie with pork or bacon, liver balls, and optional oysters or artichoke, baked with broth and egg yolk crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Rabbit Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Parboil the rabbit livers, then pound them with the same weight of fat bacon, pepper, mace, and chopped herbs until smooth.

  2. Form the liver mixture into small balls.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the rabbit pieces in a baking dish, followed by the fat pork or bacon, liver balls, and oysters or artichoke slices.

  2. Grate nutmeg over each layer and continue layering until the dish is full.

  3. Pour in the broth or water, cover with a thick crust, and brush the top with egg yolk.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Rabbit + porktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together832 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Pork + livertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  5. Pork + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,255 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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 covered baking.
Pork or bacon fat
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the lean meats from drying out in the oven.
Rabbit livers
Give the liver balls a smooth, rich texture and a deep, savoury flavour.
Egg yolk
Gives the crust a golden, glossy browning when brushed on top.

The step that matters

Pour in the broth or water before covering with the crust. The liquid keeps the meat moist as it bakes under the sealed crust, so the filling cooks through without drying out.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, pork, liver, pepper, oyster, nutmeg, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pork, liver, pepper, oyster, nutmeg, egg. 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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