Name: To Make a Rabbit Taste Much Like Hare
Ingredients: 1 young rabbit; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon allspice; ⅓ cup port wine; ⅓ cup vinegar

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Make a Rabbit Taste Much Like Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Hang the rabbit in its skin for 3 to 4 days.
Skin the rabbit without washing it.
Season the rabbit with black pepper and allspice in fine powder, port wine, and vinegar.
Baste the rabbit occasionally for 40 hours.
Stuff the rabbit and roast it like a hare, using the same sauce.
Do not wash off the soaking liquid.

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.

Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together598 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,548 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Allspice + port winetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together400 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, pepper, port wine, vinegar):

Tarragonfits better
Thymefits about as well
Garlicfits about as well
Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pepper, port wine, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.