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Barbecued Hare or Rabbit

A roasted rabbit or hare cooked with butter, boiling water, salt, pepper, and served with cresses and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rabbit and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,448 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Barbecued Hare or Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Chop off the feet of the rabbit, leaving the head on, and clean it thoroughly.

  2. Wipe the inside with a wet cloth and dry immediately.

  3. Skewer the fore- and hind-legs forward as if lying down.

  4. Put a frill of cut paper over the bone of each leg.

Roast

  1. Place the rabbit in a roasting pan with butter and boiling water.

  2. Add salt and pepper generously. Cover tightly with an inverted roasting pan.

  3. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for about 10 minutes.

  4. Baste with butter thoroughly and cover again. Repeat every 10 minutes.

  5. After 30 minutes, if the flesh feels almost firm, remove the top pan, baste again, and return to the oven until nicely browned.

Serve

  1. Garnish with cresses, sprinkle with salt and pepper, pour pan gravy over, and serve with Maitre de Hotel Butter.

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 + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the meat that is cooked through and browned in the covered pan.
Butter
Bastes the meat to add moisture and richness and help it brown.
Boiling water
Creates steam in the covered pan, keeping the meat moist while it cooks.

The step that matters

Removing the top pan. Lifting the cover too early lets steam escape and slows cooking, while leaving it on too long stops browning. Checking that the flesh is almost firm before uncovering keeps the meat tender and lets the surface brown nicely.

“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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