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Fricasseed Rabbits

A creamy rabbit stew with cayenne pepper, parsley, butter, flour, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rabbit

  1. In a stewpan, season the rabbit pieces with Cayenne pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.

  2. Add 2 cups of warm water or veal broth and simmer over low heat until the rabbit is tender.

  3. When the rabbit is halfway done, add small pieces of butter rolled in flour.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in ½ cup of thick cream and grated nutmeg, being careful not to let it boil.

  2. Transfer the rabbit to a hot dish and pour the gravy over it.

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 + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 simmering in liquid.
Butter
Enriches the gravy with fat and flavour, and its flour coating helps thicken the sauce.
Flour
Coats the butter pieces so they thicken the simmering liquid into a gravy.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cream without boiling. Cream can curdle or separate when it boils, so it should be added just before serving and kept below boiling to stay smooth and glossy.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pepper, veal, butter, flour, cream, nutmeg. 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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