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Rabbit Fricassee

A stew of rabbit pieces simmered in broth, thickened with flour, finished with lemon juice and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rabbit Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Skin and remove entrails, feet, head, and neck from the rabbits.

  2. Wash and cut the rabbits into pieces.

  3. Soak the pieces in salted cold water for 30 minutes.

  4. Rinse in cold water and place in a saucepan.

Cook and thicken

  1. Add enough hot water to cover the rabbit pieces and a pinch of salt.

  2. Cook until tender, skimming off any scum that rises.

  3. Thicken the broth with a mixture of flour and water.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in a squeeze of lemon juice, butter, and season with pepper.

  2. Serve immediately on a hot platter.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Rabbit + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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 lean meat that becomes tender during slow simmering in the broth.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce that clings to the meat.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy finish to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum while cooking. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the broth heats. Removing it keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, and it is easiest to skim while the liquid is still gently simmering.

“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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