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Fricasseed Rabbits

A rabbit stew with cayenne pepper, parsley, mace, butter, cream, 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

  1. In a stew pan, combine the rabbit pieces with cayenne pepper, salt, chopped parsley, and powdered mace.

  2. Add warm water or veal broth and simmer over low heat until the rabbits are tender.

  3. When the rabbits are halfway done, add bits of butter rolled in flour.

  4. Just before serving, stir in thick cream and grated nutmeg, being careful not to let it boil.

  5. Serve the rabbit pieces on a hot dish and pour the gravy over them.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in liquid.
Butter and flour
Rolled together and added to the liquid, they thicken the gravy into a smooth sauce.
Thick cream
Adds richness and body to the gravy, softening its flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and nutmeg. Cream is rich in milk proteins that can curdle or separate if boiled. Keeping the gravy below a boil and adding the cream just before serving keeps it smooth and creamy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

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