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To Roast Rabbits

Roasted rabbit stuffed with breadcrumbs, suet, herbs, and lemon, then baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

To Roast Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Skewer the heads of the rabbits with their mouths open on their backs.

  2. Stick the fore-legs into their ribs and skewer the hind-legs double.

  3. Mix bread crumbs, beef suet, parsley, marjoram, thyme, lemon peel, and egg.

  4. Stuff the mixture into the belly of the rabbits and sew them up.

Roast and serve

  1. Dredge and baste the rabbits well.

  2. Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for nearly an hour.

  3. Serve with parsley and butter or liver sauce.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  5. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing a light, tender body.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during roasting.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together inside the rabbits.
Lemon peel
Adds aromatic oil that brightens the rich meat and stuffing.

The step that matters

Dredge and baste the rabbits well. Rabbit is very lean, so it dries out quickly in the oven. Coating and repeatedly basting the surface with fat helps keep the meat moist and promotes even browning.

“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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