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Broiled Rabbit

Broiled rabbit pieces wrapped in bacon and seasoned with parsley, leeks, mushrooms, garlic, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broiled Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the rabbit into pieces and marinate them in oil mixed with parsley, leeks, mushrooms, garlic, salt, and pepper for a few hours.

  2. Wrap each piece of rabbit in a slice of bacon with some of the seasoning.

  3. Grease white paper with butter and place the wrapped rabbit pieces inside.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the packets on a gridiron over a very slow fire.

  2. Serve hot in the paper.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Leek + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the lean meat that becomes tender and juicy during slow cooking.
Bacon
Wraps the rabbit and bastes it with its fat, keeping the lean meat moist.
Oil
Carries the herbs and garlic into the meat during marinating and helps prevent drying.
Butter
Greases the paper so the packets do not stick and adds richness to the meat.

The step that matters

Broil the packets on a very slow fire. Low, gentle heat lets the lean rabbit cook through and become tender without drying out. Strong heat would scorch the paper and toughen the meat before its center is done.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, parsley, leek, mushroom, garlic, pepper, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, parsley, leek, mushroom, garlic, pepper, butter. 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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