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Fricasseed Rabbit

A rabbit stew thickened with butter and flour, flavored with cayenne, mace, salt, and finished with Madeira wine 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 flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fricasseed Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a stew-pan with a tightly-fitting cover, season the cut-up rabbits with cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, and mace.

  2. Add ½ cup of hot water and stew until the rabbits begin to tenderize.

  3. Mix 2 ounces of butter with 2 tablespoons of flour to thicken the gravy, then add to the stew.

  4. Just before serving, pour in a glass of Madeira wine or cream.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

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 richness and fat, and combines with flour to thicken the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter and stewing liquid.
Madeira wine
Adds aroma and gentle sweetness to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Stewing until the rabbits begin to tenderize. Rabbit is lean and can turn dry or tough if cooked hard or fast. Gentle, covered stewing in a little liquid breaks down connective tissue slowly, so the meat stays moist and tender.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, pepper, butter, flour, madeira wine. 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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