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
Fry the rabbit pieces in butter until light brown.
Place them in a saucepan with water, lemon pickle, mushroom ketchup, anchovy, lemon slice, cayenne pepper, and salt.
Stew over low heat until cooked through.
Thicken the gravy, strain it, and pour over the rabbit before serving.
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.
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Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together479 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 meat that becomes tender during slow stewing in liquid.
- Butter
- Browns the rabbit pieces, adding roasted flavour and richness to the stew.
- Anchovy
- Adds savoury depth, which is hard to notice as fishiness once it dissolves.
- Mushroom ketchup
- Contributes concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the gravy.
The step that matters
Stew over low heat until cooked through. Gentle heat lets the rabbit become tender without the proteins tightening and drying out. A hard boil toughens the meat and can make the gravy cloudy.
“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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