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Rabbit Pie

A pie made with rabbit, pickled pork or bacon, spices, stock, and pastry, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rabbit Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. In a pot, layer rabbit pieces with pickled pork or bacon.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, and onion if using.

  3. Cover with stock or water, place a lid on top, and cook in a slow oven (300°F/150°C) until half done.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the gravy over the rabbit and thicken if needed.

  2. Cover with pastry, glaze with egg if desired, and bake for about 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold, optionally with parboiled potatoes at the bottom.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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 slow initial cooking.
Pickled pork or bacon
Adds fat and salty, savoury flavour that carries into the gravy.
Pastry
Forms a crisp, browned crust that encloses the filling.
Egg
Gives the crust a glossy, browned finish when brushed on before baking.
Stock or water
Provides the liquid that cooks the rabbit and forms the gravy.

The step that matters

Cooking the rabbit until half done. Stopping at half done matters because the meat finishes cooking in the oven with the pastry. Cooking it fully first would overcook it and dry it out during baking.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, pork, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, egg, potato):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pork, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, egg, potato. 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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