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Rabbits, Fried

Fried rabbit joints served with a liver and parsley butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rabbits, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the rabbit

  1. Heat butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Fry the rabbit joints until golden brown, about 10-15 minutes.

Coat the rabbit

  1. Beat the eggs.

  2. Dip the rabbit joints in the beaten eggs.

  3. Coat the rabbit joints with bread crumbs.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Combine the chopped liver, parsley, and butter in a small pan and heat until melted.

  2. Serve the fried rabbit with the liver sauce on top.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Rabbit + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Forms the main meat of the dish, cooked by frying in butter.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumbs to the rabbit joints so the coating adheres during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns well in the hot butter.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the coating and sauce.
Liver
Adds a rich, deep flavour to the sauce served over the rabbit.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, green aroma that balances the rich butter and liver.

The step that matters

Fry the rabbit joints until golden brown. Medium heat lets the coating brown evenly while the meat cooks through. Heat that is too high browns the outside before the inside is done, while heat that is too low leaves the coating pale and greasy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Sagefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, egg, bread, liver, sauce. 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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