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To Fricajfee Rabbits Brown

A rabbit stew cooked in butter with lemon pickle, mushroom ketchup, anchovy, lemon slice, cayenne pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and anchovy match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Fricajfee Rabbits Brown

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the rabbit into pieces suitable for eating.

  2. Fry the rabbit pieces in butter until light brown.

Stew and serve

  1. Place them in a saucepan with water, lemon pickle, mushroom ketchup, anchovy, lemon slice, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  2. Stew over low heat until cooked through.

  3. Thicken the gravy, strain it, and pour it over the rabbit before serving.

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. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 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 main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Butter
Fat that browns the rabbit pieces and adds richness to the dish.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth to the gravy without tasting distinctly fishy.
Mushroom ketchup
Contributes concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stew over low heat until cooked through. High heat can toughen rabbit meat and make the liquid reduce too fast. Gentle simmering keeps the meat tender and moist while it cooks through.

“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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