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Rabbit, Baked

A whole rabbit baked with bacon, stuffing, and served with brown gravy and fruit jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rabbit and sauce work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 330 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Rabbit, Baked

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.

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Skin, empty and wash the rabbit.

  2. Line the inside with slices of bacon.

  3. Fill the rabbit with stuffing.

  4. Sew the rabbit up.

  5. Truss the rabbit firmly.

  6. Place slices of bacon on the back.

Bake

  1. Lay the rabbit in a deep baking tin.

  2. Cook in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C), basting often with bacon fat.

  3. Flour the rabbit.

  4. Baste the rabbit to brown it nicely.

Serve

  1. Remove thread and skewers.

  2. Place the rabbit on a hot dish.

  3. Pour brown gravy over the rabbit.

  4. Serve additional gravy in a tureen.

  5. Garnish with jelly.

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 + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Rabbit + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together441 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

  3. Rabbit + red curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Veal + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,072 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  5. Sauce + red curranttop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together104 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Is the main meat, cooked whole so the stuffing and bacon flavour the interior.
Bacon
Adds fat that keeps the lean rabbit moist and flavours the meat as it cooks.
Herb or veal stuffing
Fills the cavity, absorbing juices and adding moisture and flavour to the meat.
Bacon fat or dripping
Basting fat that carries heat to the surface and helps the skin brown.
Flour (in the method)
Coats the outside, helping it brown and form a crisp surface during baking.

The step that matters

Basting the rabbit while it bakes. Rabbit is very lean and dries out easily. Regular basting with fat keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning, so the meat stays juicy.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, veal, sauce. 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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