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Rabbit Pie

A pie made with stewed rabbit, cream, Jerusalem artichokes, and a thick crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Flour and jerusalem artichoke match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 116 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rabbit Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Prepare the rabbit for stewing and cut it into pieces.

  2. Place the rabbit in a pan with water or veal gravy and cook until half done.

Assemble and bake

  1. Transfer the meat to a pie dish and sprinkle with flour.

  2. Add the cream and the gravy from cooking the rabbit.

  3. Layer the sliced Jerusalem artichokes on top.

  4. Cover with a thick pie crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Flour + jerusalem artichoketop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + jerusalem artichoketop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Rabbit + jerusalem artichoketop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  5. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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 as it cooks in the pie.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce as it bakes.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the sauce, giving it a smooth texture.
Jerusalem artichokes
Add a mild, nutty flavour and firm texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the rabbit until half done. Stopping at half done leaves the meat partly cooked so it can finish in the oven without drying out. Cooking it fully first would make it tough and dry once baked again.

“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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