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Rabbits, Fricasseed

A rabbit fricassee made with white gravy, anchovy, spices, and optional lemon or catsup, served with a brown variant.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rabbits, Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white fricassee

  1. In a stewpan, combine the rabbit joints, white gravy, anchovy, cayenne, salt, and nutmeg or mace.

  2. Let it stew for 1 to 1.5 hours until the rabbit is tender.

  3. Remove the rabbit and thicken the gravy with butter, flour, egg yolks, and cream, mixing smoothly.

  4. Simmer for 1 minute without boiling.

  5. Add lemon juice or catsup if desired.

Make the brown fricassee

  1. For a brown fricassee, fry the rabbit in butter until light brown.

  2. Gradually add beef gravy and seasonings, and stew for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  3. Thicken with butter and flour, and add mushroom catsup and port wine instead of cream or eggs.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 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 meat that becomes tender during slow stewing in the gravy.
Egg yolks
Thicken the gravy as they set gently with heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the thickened gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy by swelling with liquid during simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and helps browning when the rabbit is fried.
Anchovy
Adds savory depth to the gravy without tasting distinctly fishy.

The step that matters

Simmer the thickened gravy without boiling. Egg yolks used as a thickener can curdle or scramble if the gravy boils, leaving a grainy texture. Gentle simmering sets them smoothly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, anchovy, pepper, butter, flour, egg, 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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