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Rabbit Boiled

A boiled rabbit served with carrot, onion, herbs, mace, and fried bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Rabbit Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rabbit and soak it in milk and water for 2 hours.

Cook

  1. Boil the rabbit in just enough water to cover it.

  2. Add the carrot, onion cut into pieces, bouquet of herbs, and mace.

  3. Let everything simmer gently for 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Dish the rabbit, place the onion over it, and arrange the fried bacon around it.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Rabbit + carrottop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together301 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Is the main protein, becoming tender and firm as it simmers gently.
Milk
Soaking in milk and water helps mellow the flavour and keep the meat moist.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness as it softens in the simmering liquid.
Fried bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat and browned flavour as a garnish around the rabbit.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for 45 minutes. Boiling hard instead of simmering toughens the meat fibres and can break the rabbit apart. A gentle simmer lets collagen soften slowly, keeping the meat tender and moist.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, milk, carrot, onion):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, milk, carrot, onion. 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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