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Fricassee of Rabbit

A stew of rabbit pieces cooked in a butter and milk sauce with onions, celery, bacon, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricassee of Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the rabbit pieces.

  2. In a stewpan, melt the butter with the sliced onion, celery, and bacon.

  3. Add the rabbit pieces and fry gently for 20 minutes, turning constantly to avoid browning.

  4. Remove the rabbit and keep it warm on a rack.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir the flour into the pan with the vegetables, mixing well with the fat.

  2. Gradually add the hot milk, stirring until the sauce is smooth and thick.

  3. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, mace, and lemon peel.

Cook and serve

  1. Return the rabbit to the pan, cover, and cook gently for at least 1 hour.

  2. Transfer to a hot dish, boil the sauce, then add tarragon vinegar and strain over the meat.

  3. Garnish with fried bread snippets and rolls of bacon.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Rabbit
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long gentle cooking.
Butter or clarified dripping
Carries the frying of the vegetables and rabbit and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, cohesive sauce when cooked with the fat.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce, which thickens and mellows as it cooks.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the fat and the sauce.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat flavour to the pan that seasons the dish.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk gradually. Pouring the milk in slowly while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce becomes smooth rather than lumpy.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, onion, celery, flour, milk, 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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