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Fhicassee of Rabbit with Mushrooms

A rabbit stew with mushrooms, butter, ham, lemon, stock, cream, and seasonings, finished with a roux-based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Fhicassee of Rabbit with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Blanch the rabbit pieces in cold water until boiling, then wash in several waters.

  2. Remove the second skin and trim any ragged pieces from the rabbit.

  3. Cover the rabbit with white paper and simmer gently on low heat for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan, add the ham and mushrooms, and squeeze in the lemon juice.

  2. Skim the butter from the cooking liquid and place it in a stew pan over heat.

  3. Add enough flour to absorb the butter, stirring continuously.

  4. Gradually add the rabbit cooking liquid, a little stock, and cream, stirring until it boils.

  5. Strain the sauce through a tammy and pour it over the rabbit.

  6. Season with white pepper, salt, and a dusting of sugar.

Serve

  1. Serve the rabbit on a dish, topped with mushrooms, and garnish with croutons or pastry.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  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

Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during gentle simmering.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flour so it thickens smoothly without lumps.
Flour
Absorbs the butter and thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce and topping.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the sauce.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the mushroom base.

The step that matters

Adding flour to the butter. Stir the flour in continuously so it coats the fat evenly; this keeps the roux smooth and prevents lumps when the liquid is added.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, ham, mushroom, lemon, 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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