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Fricasseed Rabbit

A rabbit stew thickened with butter and flour, finished with Madeira or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricasseed Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Season the rabbit pieces in a stew-pan with a tightly-fitting cover with cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, and mace.

  2. Add hot water and stew until the rabbit begins to tenderize.

  3. Mix butter and flour to thicken the gravy, then add to the stew.

  4. Just before serving, pour in the Madeira or cream.

  5. Serve immediately.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 protein, which firms and turns tender as it stews slowly in liquid.
Butter and flour
Flour thickens the gravy, and butter adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the sauce.
Madeira or cream
Added at the end to add sweetness and richness, and to finish the gravy's flavour.

The step that matters

Stew until the rabbit just begins to tenderize. Rabbit is very lean and can turn dry and tough if overcooked, yet it stays chewy if undercooked. Gentle, covered stewing in liquid breaks down connective tissue slowly and keeps the meat moist.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pepper, 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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