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Fried Rabbit

Fried rabbit pieces served with a heart and liver gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Soak the dressed rabbit in salt water for 1 hour.

  2. Boil the rabbit in water for 10 minutes, then drain and let it cool.

  3. Cut the rabbit into pieces, dip in beaten egg, then coat with seasoned cracker crumbs.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Fry the pieces in butter over low heat for 15 minutes.

  2. Boil the heart and liver, then mince finely.

  3. In a pan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter, add ¾ tablespoon of flour, and stir to make a gravy.

  4. Add the minced heart and liver and 2 tablespoons of cream; boil briefly.

Serve

  1. Serve the rabbit hot with the gravy.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the meat that is cooked and served as the main dish.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the cracker crumbs stick to the rabbit pieces.
Cracker crumbs
Form a seasoned crust that browns and crisps when fried.
Flour
Thickens the butter and drippings to form the gravy.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the pieces in butter over low heat for 15 minutes.. Low heat lets the coating cook through and brown gently without scorching the butter or burning the crumbs before the meat is done.

“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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