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Smoked Rabbit

Smoked rabbit prepared by cleaning, salting, smoking, then baking with butter, salt, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rabbit and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,448 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Smoked Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Clean the rabbit and cut off the head.

  2. Wash the rabbit in salt and water.

Smoke

  1. Hang the rabbit to smoke over chips or cobs.

  2. Do not let it hang after smoking to prevent it from becoming hard and dry.

Bake

  1. Before cooking, wash the rabbit again.

  2. Place the rabbit in a pan with a little water, salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour, basting frequently with the drippings.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 smoked and then baked until tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the pan drippings used for basting.

The step that matters

Do not let it hang after smoking. Leaving the rabbit to hang once smoking is finished lets it dry out further, making the meat hard and dry, so it should be moved on to cooking promptly.

“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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