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To Boil Rabbit

A boiled rabbit served with white onion sauce, lemon slices, and minced liver.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rabbit and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,292 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

To Boil Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Truss the rabbit short and soak it in warm water for 10 minutes.

Cook

  1. Place the rabbit in a pot of plenty of water and boil for 30 minutes (or longer for larger or older rabbits).

Serve

  1. Cut the rabbit into serving pieces.

  2. Place half the head at each end of the dish.

  3. Serve with plenty of white onion sauce and minced liver around the dish.

  4. Garnish with slices of lemon and finely chopped liver.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Rabbit + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rabbit + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  4. Onion + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,420 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Rabbit + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in water until tender.
White onion sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy, savoury coating to the rabbit.
Lemon
Adds acidity and a bright aroma that cuts the richness of the meat and sauce.
Liver from the rabbit
Adds a rich, savoury flavour as a minced accompaniment and garnish.

The step that matters

Boil for the full time. Rabbit is lean, and undercooked meat stays tough and chewy. Older or larger rabbits need longer simmering so connective tissue can soften fully, which is why the record notes extra time for them.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, sauce, 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.

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