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Rabbit Pie

A baked pie made with rabbit, bacon, stock, parsley, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rabbit Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Skin, clean, and wash the rabbit.

  2. Cut the rabbit into pieces and blanch by placing it in cold water over heat until boiling, then transfer to cold water.

  3. Season the rabbit with pepper and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place slices of bacon at the bottom of a pie dish.

  2. Lay the rabbit pieces on top and sprinkle with parsley.

  3. Pour the stock over the rabbit.

  4. Cover the dish and bake for 1.5 hours.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Rabbit + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

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 pie and provides the meat that becomes tender during baking.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the meat as it bakes.
Stock
Provides moisture so the rabbit steams and stays tender in the covered dish.

The step that matters

Blanching the rabbit. Placing the rabbit pieces in cold water and bringing them to a boil, then moving them to cold water, helps remove surface impurities and blood, which keeps the finished filling clean in flavor and appearance.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Rosemaryfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pepper. 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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