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Baked Rabbit, with Bacon

A baked rabbit wrapped in bacon, cooked with potatoes and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Rabbit, with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Prepare the rabbits by cleaning and gutting them.

  3. Wrap the rabbits in bacon rashers.

  4. Place the wrapped rabbits in a baking dish.

  5. Add chopped potatoes and onions around the rabbits.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 1 hour or until the rabbits are cooked through.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 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. Rabbit + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the lean meat that is the main protein of the dish.
Bacon
Wraps the rabbit, adding fat that bastes the meat and crisps as it bakes.
Potatoes
Absorb juices from the pan and turn tender while roasting alongside the meat.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they bake in the rendered bacon fat and pan juices.

The step that matters

Wrapping the rabbits in bacon. Lean rabbit meat dries out easily in the oven, so the bacon fat acts as a moisture barrier and bastes the meat as it cooks.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Turnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, 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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