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Fricassee Rabbit

A stew of rabbit in cream gravy with herbs, salt pork, eggs, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and rabbit work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 832 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Fricassee Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbits

  1. Clean two young rabbits, cut into joints, and soak in salt and water for half an hour.

  2. Put the rabbits into a saucepan with a pint of cold water, a bunch of sweet herbs, a finely minced onion, a pinch of mace, half a nutmeg, a pinch of pepper, and half a pound of salt pork cut into small thin slices.

  3. Cover and stew until tender.

  4. Take out the rabbits and set them in a dish where they will keep warm.

Make the gravy

  1. Add a cup of cream (or milk) to the gravy.

  2. Stir in two well-beaten eggs, a little at a time.

  3. Add a tablespoonful of butter to the gravy.

  4. Add a thickening made of a tablespoonful of flour and a little milk to the gravy.

  5. Boil the gravy once.

  6. Remove the saucepan from the fire.

  7. Squeeze in the juice of a lemon, stirring all the while.

  8. Pour the gravy over the rabbits.

Finish

  1. Do not cook the head or neck.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

946Calories
47 gProtein
38 gFat
99 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 11 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Pork100g cooked242
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0
Rabbitnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Pork + rabbittop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together832 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + rabbittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Eggs
Thicken the cream gravy gently as they set when stirred in off heat.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the rabbit rather than running thin.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the gravy, softening its flavour.
Salt pork
Renders fat and savoury flavour into the stewing liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring in the eggs. Eggs curdle if they overheat or are added all at once. Adding them a little at a time while stirring, and keeping the gravy below a hard boil, lets them thicken smoothly into a silky sauce instead of scrambling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, pork, cream, butter, flour, rabbit, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, pork, cream, butter, flour, rabbit, egg. 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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