Name: Rabbits, to Pot
Ingredients: 2 or 3 young rabbits; Salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; Mace, to taste; Cayenne, to taste; Allspice, to taste; Butter, for baking; Rabbit livers, optional

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 ↓

Rabbits, to Pot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut up the rabbits and remove the leg bones at the thigh.

Pack and bake

Pack the meat tightly in a small pan, seasoning with pepper, mace, cayenne, salt, and allspice, all finely powdered.
Smooth the top of the meat mixture.
Keep the heads and carcasses aside.
Remove meat from the neck.
Add a generous amount of butter.
Bake gently.

Rest and serve

Let it sit in the pan for two days.
Transfer to small pots.
Add more butter and the livers if desired.

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).
Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,189 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Rabbit + livertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together233 recipes

Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).
Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,448 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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: Makes up the bulk of the dish as the main meat that is packed and baked.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and helping keep the meat moist.
Mace: Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the seasoning.

The step that matters

Bake gently. Gentle heat cooks the packed meat through evenly without drying it out or pushing the fat and butter out of the meat too quickly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, pepper, allspice, butter, liver):

Thymefits better
Sagefits better
Parsleyfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pepper, allspice, butter, liver. 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.