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Fricasseed Rabbit

A stew of rabbit pieces simmered with cayenne pepper, salt, parsley, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricasseed Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a stewpan, combine the rabbit pieces with cayenne pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.

  2. Pour in 2 cups of warm water and bring to a simmer.

  3. Cook over low heat until the rabbit is tender.

  4. When nearly done, add the butter and stir until melted.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rabbit + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  5. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the main protein, which turns tender and succulent during slow simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat until the rabbit is tender. Rabbit is lean and can turn dry and tough if boiled hard. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue soften slowly while the meat stays moist.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

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