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To Fricassee Rabbits Brown

A fricassee of rabbits cooked in butter, water, lemon pickle, mushroom catsup, browning sauce, anchovy, lemon, cayenne pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Fricassee Rabbits Brown

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the rabbits in butter until light brown.

  2. Place them in a pan with water, lemon pickle, mushroom catsup, browning sauce, anchovy, lemon, cayenne pepper, and salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Stew over low heat until cooked through.

  2. Thicken the gravy, strain it, and pour over the rabbits 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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 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

Rabbits
Provide the main protein that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Butter
Browns the rabbit surface and adds richness to the dish.
Mushroom catsup
Adds savoury depth and umami to the gravy.
Anchovy
Dissolves into the liquid, adding savoury depth without a fishy taste.
Lemon pickle
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the rabbits until light brown. Browning creates flavour through the Maillard reaction. Frying too little leaves the gravy flat, while over-browning can make it bitter.

“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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