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Rabbit Fie

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rabbit Fie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Make a force-meat by pounding the bacon with the rabbit livers, pepper, salt, mace, parsley, and shallot.

  2. Layer the mixture in the bottom of a deep dish and add thin slices of ham or bacon on top.

  3. Cut the giblets into four pieces and reserve the cooking liquid.

  4. Season the giblets with black pepper and salt, then place them in the dish.

  5. Cover with pastry, brush with egg yolk, and bake for 1.5 hours at 350°F (175°C).

  6. Skim the fat from the reserved liquid, thicken it with flour and butter, and season with pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

  7. Strain the sauce and pour some into the pie after baking.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, rabbit, pepper, parsley, shallot, ham, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, rabbit, pepper, parsley, shallot, ham, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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