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Barbecued Rabbit

Barbecued rabbit seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, vinegar or ketchup, and mustard, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Barbecued 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. Wash the rabbit thoroughly and soak it in a mixture of salt and water for 30 minutes.

Cook and season

  1. Place the rabbit in a broiler and cook quickly, basting with butter 2–3 times to prevent drying.

  2. Once tender and browned, transfer it to a pan and season with plenty of butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Set the pan in the oven at 350 °F (175 °C) for 10 minutes, turning constantly to soak up the dressing.

  4. Heat the vinegar or tomato ketchup and prepared mustard together, then pour it over the rabbit and baste well.

Serve

  1. Let it stand for a moment before serving hot.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Rabbit + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  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
Provides the lean meat that is cooked, basted and served as the main dish.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture during basting and carries flavour, helping the surface brown.
Vinegar or tomato ketchup
Adds acidity and sweetness to the glaze, brightening the rich meat.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp, aromatic flavour to the glaze that complements the rabbit.

The step that matters

Basting during the broil. Rabbit is very lean and dries out quickly over high heat. Frequent basting with butter adds fat and moisture to the surface, helping keep the meat tender while it browns.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, pepper, vinegar. 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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