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Fricassee Rabbit

A stew of rabbit in a creamy sauce with butter, flour, eggs, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fricassee Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, cover the salt pork and onion with water and stew until tender.

  2. Remove the rabbit and keep warm in a dish.

  3. Add cream, beaten eggs, butter, and a mixture of flour and a little milk to the gravy.

  4. Boil once, then remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the rabbit and serve.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Rabbit + porktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together832 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the cream sauce as they set when gently heated, giving it body and richness.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so the sauce coats the rabbit rather than running off.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a glossy, smooth finish to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream sauce and balances its flavor.

The step that matters

Boil once, then remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Beaten eggs can curdle and turn grainy if the sauce boils or stays hot too long. Boil once, then take it off the heat before adding the egg-thickened cream and acidic lemon juice, so the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, nutmeg, pepper, pork, cream, 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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