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Rabbit Pie

A savory pie filled with rabbit, beef, pork, and stock, topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Rabbit Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Wash the rabbit and cut it into small joints.

  2. Cut the beef into thin slices and dice the pork.

Assemble

  1. Layer the rabbit, beef, and pork in a pie dish, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper.

  2. Fill the dish three-quarters full with stock.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with pastry and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1½ to 2 hours until the pastry rises and sets.

  2. Brush the pie with egg yolk when three-quarters baked for a better appearance.

  3. Before serving, add the remaining hot stock to the pie.

  4. For a cold pie, add forcemeat balls and hard-boiled eggs for improvement.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rabbit + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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 oven bake.
Bacon or pickled pork
Adds savoury fat and salty flavour that seasons the meat and stock.
Beef steak
Adds meaty body and richness to the filling.
Stock
Supplies moisture that cooks the meat and forms the savoury gravy in the pie.
Short crust or puff pastry
Forms the crust, which rises and sets in the hot oven.

The step that matters

Fill the dish three-quarters full with stock. Stock must reach the filling without flooding the pastry. Moisture from the meat and stock turns into steam and gravy during baking, so the level matters for a moist, well-set pie.

“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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