Name: Rabbits, to Roast
Ingredients: 1 rabbit; Stuffing (as for veal); 1 rabbit liver, scalded and chopped fine; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; Bread crumbs; Butter; Onion sauce; Mushroom sauce or catsup

Why it works: Veal and liver match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 392 recipes. Both carry enoic acid, which smells butter, cheesy. The science ↓

Rabbits, to Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing as for veal, adding the chopped liver.
Season the rabbit with salt and pepper, then coat with bread crumbs.
Roast the rabbit over a brisk fire for 40 minutes to 1 hour, depending on size.
Serve with onion sauce poured over the top.
Mix parsley and butter with the chopped liver in a serving dish.

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.

Veal + livertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together392 recipes

Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,292 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits about as well
Shallotfits about as well
Onionthe original
Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, veal, liver, pepper, bread, butter, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.