Skip to main content
Main

Rabbit Fricasee

A rabbit stew with onions, herbs, and a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: White wine and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Rabbit Fricasee

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the onions

  1. Roast the small onions and fat in butter until the onions are nicely colored.

  2. Remove the onions and add the rabbit pieces to the pan.

Braise the rabbit

  1. Add herbs, salt, and spices, then moisten with water and white wine.

  2. Cook over low heat until the rabbit is nearly done.

  3. If using, add onions and mushrooms with a small piece of butter mixed with flour.

  4. Finish cooking, remove herbs, skim the sauce, and serve hot.

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. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow moist cooking.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the braising liquid, balancing the richness of the sauce.
Butter
Carries flavor and browns the onions, adding richness to the dish.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smoother sauce when mixed with butter.
Onions
Add sweetness and depth once browned in butter and fat.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat until the rabbit is nearly done. Rabbit is lean and dries out or toughens if cooked too fast or hot. Gentle, moist heat in the liquid keeps the meat tender and lets the sauce reduce without scorching.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, white wine, mushroom, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, white wine, mushroom, flour. 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.

More rabbit fricassee recipes

with Mushrooms 3White 3 See all 73 →

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesRabbit PattiesRabbit Patties6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes