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Rabbit, Fricasseed, White

A rabbit fricassee cooked in a white sauce of flour, milk, and gravy, finished with lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rabbit, Fricasseed, White

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Skin, empty, and wash the rabbit.

  2. Dry the rabbit with a soft cloth.

  3. Cut the rabbit into serving-sized joints and place them in a stewpan.

  4. Cover the rabbit with white stock or water, add onions, herbs, mace, lemon peel, and salt.

  5. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  6. Remove the rabbit pieces and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix flour with milk or cream until smooth. Add the gravy.

  2. Pour the mixture into a clean saucepan with butter rolled in flour.

  3. Stir until it boils. Simmer until thick enough to coat a spoon.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the rabbit to the sauce. Heat through.

  2. Season with pepper and salt. Stir in lemon juice just before serving.

  3. Arrange the rabbit on a hot dish. Pour sauce over. Garnish with lemon.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through gentle simmering.
Flour
Thickens the milk or cream and gravy into a smooth, coating sauce.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, mellowing its flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour thicken the sauce smoothly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in lemon juice just before serving. Acid added late keeps its bright flavour; heated for long, it turns dull and can make a cream sauce look curdled or thin.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, lemon, flour, milk, butter, pepper. 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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