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Rabbit, Boiled

A boiled rabbit served with sauce and bacon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,424 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Rabbit, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin, draw, and wash the rabbits.

  2. Truss the rabbits with heads skewered to the sides.

  3. Soak the rabbits in a mixture of milk and water for 2 hours for added juiciness.

Boil and serve

  1. In a large pot, bring water to a boil and add onion, carrot, herbs, nutmeg, peppercorns, and salt.

  2. Drop the rabbits into the boiling water and simmer gently for 30-45 minutes, depending on size.

  3. Drain the rabbits and serve with your choice of sauce and garnish with boiled bacon or rashers of broiled bacon.

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. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. 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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provides the main meat, which turns tender and moist when simmered gently.
Milk
Soaking in milk and water is meant to add juiciness to the meat.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after dropping the rabbits in. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and dries the outside before the inside cooks, so keeping the water at a gentle simmer gives a more tender, juicy result.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, onion, carrot, milk, butter, sauce):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, carrot, milk, butter, 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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