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Rabbit Savoury

A baked rabbit dish with onions, herbs, flour, potatoes, lime juice, and optional fat for basting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rabbit Savoury

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 dish

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

  2. Score the top of the rabbit meat and grease a pie dish.

  3. Sprinkle a layer of chopped onions and herbs in the dish.

  4. Place the rabbit pieces in the dish and cover with more onions, seasoning, and flour.

Bake and brown

  1. Cover the dish and bake for 10 minutes.

  2. Peel and quarter the partially cooked potatoes, then add them to the dish, turning the rabbit.

  3. Remove the cover and increase the oven temperature to brown the dish.

  4. If needed, add more fat to prevent the meat from drying out.

Serve with sauce

  1. Serve as is or transfer to a serving dish, pouring off excess fat.

  2. To make a sauce, add flour, pepper, salt, lime juice, and hot water to the fat, then thicken and serve in a sauceboat.

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. Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

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

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Sage + limetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together37 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and moist during covered baking.
Flour
Coats the rabbit and later thickens the pan fat into a sauce.
Butter or grease
Prevents sticking and adds fat that keeps the meat from drying out.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the dish.
Potatoes
Absorb cooking juices and fat, adding body and starch to the dish.

The step that matters

Adding more fat during baking. Rabbit is very lean, so without enough fat it can dry out in the oven. Basting or adding fat keeps the meat moist and helps the surface brown.

Swap the lime

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, onion, sage, pepper, flour, potato):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limethe original
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, onion, sage, pepper, flour, potato. 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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