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Fricassee of Rabbits

A stew of rabbit pieces browned with butter and onions, simmered in milk and water with vinegar, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fricassee of Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and draw the rabbits, wash the insides with vinegar, save the vinegar and blood, strain to remove any fur.

  2. Wipe the rabbits with a wet cloth, cut them into 2‑inch pieces, roll them in seasoned flour.

  3. Peel and slice the onion(s).

Cook and serve

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter, add the rabbits and onions, and brown them quickly.

  2. Pour in the milk and enough boiling water to cover the rabbits, then season with salt and cayenne.

  3. Cover the pan and stew gently for about 30 minutes, or until the rabbits are tender.

  4. Serve the fricassee very 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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 stewing in liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the rabbit and onions and enriches the sauce.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and brown in the pan.
Flour
Coats the rabbit pieces so they brown and help thicken the sauce.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the sauce as it simmers with the meat.

The step that matters

Brown the rabbit quickly. Searing the flour-coated pieces in hot butter builds browned flavour and colour. Crowding the pan or browning too slowly steams the meat, leaving the flavour flat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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