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Roast Rabbit

Roast rabbit stuffed with sausage meat and seasoned breadcrumbs, wrapped in buttered paper, baked, served with brown gravy, red‑currant jelly, and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Roast Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thoroughly wash the rabbit and wipe it dry.

  2. Line the inside with sausage meat and seasoned bread crumbs.

  3. Sew the stuffing inside.

  4. Skewer the head back between the shoulders.

  5. Cut off the fore joints of the shoulders and legs.

  6. Bring the joints close to the body.

  7. Secure the joints with a skewer.

Roast

  1. Wrap the rabbit in buttered paper and baste it well.

  2. A few minutes before it is done, remove the paper.

  3. Flour the rabbit.

  4. Let it brown.

  5. Cook for about 45 minutes.

  6. Remove the skewers.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown gravy and red-currant jelly.

  2. Garnish with lemon slices.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Rabbit + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together315 recipes

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

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Rabbit + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 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

Rabbit
Forms the main body of the dish, supplying the meat that is roasted and served.
Sausage meat
Fills the cavity, adding fat and moisture that keep the stuffed meat juicy as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and fat in the stuffing, helping it hold together and stay moist.
Butter
Wrapped around the rabbit, it adds fat that promotes moisture and gentle browning.
Red-currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich, savoury roasted meat.

The step that matters

Remove the paper before the end of cooking. Removing the buttered paper a few minutes before the rabbit is done lets the surface dry and brown. Leaving it wrapped the whole time would keep the meat pale and steamed.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, meat, bread, butter, lemon):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, meat, bread, butter, lemon. 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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