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Rabbit, Roast

A whole rabbit stuffed with veal forcemeat, wrapped in bacon, roasted and served with brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rabbit and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,067 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Rabbit, Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the rabbit, then empty it and wash it well.

  2. Fill the rabbit with veal forcemeat and sew it up securely.

  3. Truss the rabbit with forelegs back and hind legs forwards.

  4. Fasten the head upright with a skewer.

  5. Tie a slice of fat bacon on the back with string.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the rabbit in front of a clear fire.

  2. Baste the rabbit liberally for 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on size.

  3. Remove the bacon.

  4. Dredge the rabbit with flour.

  5. Baste the rabbit well.

  6. Serve the rabbit on a hot dish with rolled slices of bacon and brown gravy in a tureen.

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 + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  2. Rabbit + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together441 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

  3. Veal + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 and carries the flavour of the stuffing and fat.
Veal forcemeat
Fills the cavity, adding moisture and richness as it cooks inside the rabbit.
Fat bacon
Tied over the back to baste the lean meat with melting fat as it roasts.
Flour
Dredged over the surface to help form a crisp, browned crust.

The step that matters

Basting the rabbit liberally. Rabbit is lean and dries out quickly over a fire, so regular basting with fat keeps the meat moist and helps the surface brown evenly.

“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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