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Roast Rabbit

A rabbit stuffed with a mixture of veal, pork, crackers, butter, and broth, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and rabbit work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 832 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Roast Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Simmer veal and pork in water to cover for 2 hours.

  2. Chop the meat fine.

  3. Mix the chopped meat with rolled crackers, salt, pepper, summer savory, butter, and broth.

Stuff and coat the rabbit

  1. Stuff the hot mixture into the rabbit.

  2. Sew up the opening of the rabbit.

  3. Position the rabbit on its knees.

  4. Skewer the rabbit.

  5. Rub the rabbit thickly with butter.

  6. Dredge the rabbit with flour.

Bake

  1. Place the rabbit in a baking pan with hot water at the bottom.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C), basting frequently.

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. Pork + rabbittop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together832 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Summer savory + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together263 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Pork + meattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the bulk and savory body of the meat stuffing.
Pork
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
Crackers
Absorb the broth and bind the chopped meat into a cohesive stuffing.
Broth
Adds moisture to the stuffing so it does not dry out during baking.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavor and promotes browning on the skin.
Flour
Forms a dredged coating that helps the skin brown and crisp.

Swap the summer savory

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, pepper, butter, meat, rabbit, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, pepper, butter, meat, rabbit, flour. 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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