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Rabbit Pudding

A boiled rabbit and bacon pudding made with suet, flour, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Rabbit and beef work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 252 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Rabbit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Season the rabbit with pepper, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Cut the bacon into strips.

Make the pastry

  1. In a bowl, mix the suet, flour, salt, and cold water to form a stiff paste.

  2. Grease a basin.

  3. Roll out the paste, reserving a small piece for the top.

  4. Line the basin with the paste.

Fill and seal

  1. Add the rabbit and bacon to the basin.

  2. Pour in the stock or water.

  3. Roll out the reserved paste to cover the top.

  4. Wet the edges of the pudding.

  5. Press the edges to seal.

Cook and serve

  1. Dip a cloth in boiling water.

  2. Dredge the cloth with flour.

  3. Tie the cloth over the pudding.

  4. Place the pudding in boiling water.

  5. Boil for 3.5 to 4 hours.

  6. Loosen the edges with a knife.

  7. Turn out the pudding carefully.

  8. Serve.

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 + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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
Provides the main meat filling, which becomes tender during the long boil.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the crust rich and moist during long steaming.
All-purpose flour
Forms the stiff paste that holds its shape and encloses the filling.
Streaky bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that seasons the meat as it cooks.

The step that matters

Sealing the pudding. Wet and pressed edges close the paste so steam and juices stay inside. A gap lets water into the basin during the long boil, diluting the filling.

“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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